United States

James C. Kulhanek

b. 1908

James Charles Kulhanek was an American commercial artist and designer. Václav Kulhánek and Anna Kulhánek, née Veleba, the parents of James C. Kulhanek, were born in Bohemia within Austria-Hungary and settled in Cleveland in the 1900s. James C. Kulhanek was born there on April 23, 1908. Kulhanek was a student of Henry Keller at the Cleveland School of Art. In 1938, Kulhanek was a witness to an incident at Brookside Zoo where Judy Zemnick, another WPA artist, was pulled into a polar bear enclosure and clawed. Kulhanek and another artist called for help and tried to drive the bear away from Ms. Zemnick. The incident received extensive press coverage at the time and for two years following. Between 1935 and 1942, Kulhanek received Federal Art Project commissions through New Deal Works Progress Administration- sponsored art projects, such as the rendering of several prints of elks, great horned owls, and reindeer, now in the collection of Case Western University. He also painted panels to be installed in the hallways of Collinwood and Lincoln High Schools as well as the Federal Courthouse. Shortly before Kulhanek's death, the artist painted a portrait of former Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich, who actually sat for Kulhanek, although the portrait was never displayed in Cleveland City Hall.