Wrestling With 3,000 Years

by Eleanor Marko
(Text from Palette Talk The Newark Star Ledger, 1967 [month, day unknown])
His relentless energy and passion to discuss the things that interest him art, history, philosophy and
music, are as unobtrusive as a happening.
Yet, you must ask the first question to set the force of his knowledge in motion.
John Brzostoski is a man who wrestles with 3,000 years of thought. An example of his accomplishment
is in the current issue of Arts Magazine (September/October) which features his five-page illustrated
article on Art in the Serene Capital of Now Japanese Art of the Heian Period: 7941185 A.D.
Few, except in the inner art circles, recognize the accomplishments of the Middletown artist as an
expert in oriental art, his scholarship as a teacher, his experience as a painter and fluency as a writer. He
is foremost in the challenging list of county residents who are contributing a broader understanding of
art on an international level.
In Red Bank, Mr. Bro is known as an indefatigable teacher of art at Red Bank High School, the
bearded founder of the folk singing group, the Nothing Strum, and a catalyst for aid to Tibetan
refugees.
In New York Mr. Brzostoski holds a high academic relationship as associate curator of the Tibetan
Collection at the Riverside Museum and as a faculty member at the New School For Social Research
and New York University. His articles on Oriental art have appeared in Art International, Arts
Magazine, Friends Journal, Art News and Craft Horizons, among other periodicals. He wrote a book,
Collection of Tibetan Art, with commentary and a historical essay which was published by Riverside
Museum.
The associate director of the museum, Oriole Farb, in the foreword of the book termed the curator's
accomplishment an important service. She said Mr. Brzostoski has given both the layman and the
artist a fuller and deeper understanding of Tibetan art its historical and religious foundations, its
artistic and esthetic values The museum's collections of Tibetan art are considered the finest and most
inclusive. The works were acquired primarily during the years 192428 by expeditions sent to Tibet by
the Mast Institute of United Arts Inc., the parent organization of the Riverside Museum. As a
supplement Mr. and Mrs. L.L. Horch, founders of the museum, presented to the Columbia University
Library a literary part of the collection to make it more readily available to Oriental scholars. These are
346 volumes of Tibetan literature: Kanjur and Tanjur.

Interest in the Orient began at the age of 11 for the artist, now 41, who resided with his parents and four
brothers in Newark. The librarians were his special friends at Newark Library and it was there that he
was attracted to the worn leather covers of the philosophers. Directly out of high school he was drafted
in the Army and served in Europe during World War II. In 1946 on separation he entered Newark Fine
and Industrial Arts where he specialized in fine art painting. The Newark Library again became his
special hangout and he was given reference books on Oriental Art and accorded special privileges for
his enthusiasm on the subject. Oriental art is not as stale as it may seem, Mr. Bro commented.
After three years at Newark, he enrolled at Rutgers University for languages and philosophy and then
transferred to Syracuse University, where he received a B.A. and M.A. in fine arts. He continued study
at the New York University to 1962. (He taught at NYU this summer Oriental art history, primitive art,
and Renaissance and 19th Century.)
His earlier employment included drafting, working in a slaughterhouse, making jewelry and other odd
jobs. He accepted a faculty position as an art history teacher at Upsala College and received a
scholarship to student Japanese prints and Near East Archeology at the New School in New York. He
taught an art course for deaf children for a while, and then advanced in his study of Oriental Art and
Oriental Philosophy until 1959. He began teaching art at Red Bank High School in 1955 56 but
continued to teach in New York. His professor there had left for Japan and recommended that the
administration accept Mr. Brzostoski to teach the course on Japanese prints. That's where he brushed
the field as an expert. Success, he believes, is a series of combinations of circumstances. You have to
do something yourself, but someone has to help you, he said. He designed new courses at New
School. One of his classes he was on his way to Tuesday night after this interview was Oriental Art
With Buddhist Philosophy Through Art.
I like teaching the young, Mr. Brzostoski said. Look at art with innocent eyes, he recommends.
When you add your own nervous system to an inanimate object it takes them on a journey. There are
two journeys one is in the painting.
In his article on the Heian period, Mr. Brzostoski refers to a Tibetan [sic] monk Kukai who would say
Art reveals to us the state of perfection. In commenting on it, Mr. Brzostoski said, This revelation is
on the experiential level, where we get a taste of the state, the place of perfection, the only place to
live.
As a member of the Shrewbury Meeting of Friends, he has been instrumental in forming a Tibetan
Committee which is now functioning as part of the Quaker group's Peace Committee. Driven by the
Inner Light to journey to Nepal in the Himalayas, Mr. Brzostoski took on a one-man adventure that
brought him near death. The summer experience two years ago still continues to weigh heavy on his
consciousness as an emissary of peace and understanding, which he has chosen to do through art. His
color slides which he uses to illustrate lectures on the subject are extraordinary. At Asia House in New
York, where they were shown as part of a special exhibition of Asian Art, he gained immediate acclaim.

With them he has helped to bring attention to those who wish to help the Tibetan refugees.
He has come a long journey from the age of 11 when self-argument about religion brought him to the
leather worn books at the library, and through his thesis on Chinese art for his masters degree at
Syracuse. It is best versed in Mr. Brzostoski's own words a poem from his book The Kiss and 32
published in 1951: Such a roaring questioning on the reason for life, or art or anything that your
own melodious answer cannot be heard.
Top-Par Gyur-Chi (Let it be obtained, treasures included).