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b. March 24, 1916 Chicago, IL.  d. 1988 Palm Springs, Calif. 

Neo-Romanticist landscape painter, active 1940s though 1988. Served in WWII. Studied at the Chicago Art Institute, with Al Landers in New York, and with Alois Lecoque, pupil of August Renoir. Became the director of the American Academy of Fine Arts in Los Angeles, and produced a television series called Art for the Fun of It. Collected by many famous people, including: U.S. Anderson, Robert Kennedy, Jerry Lewis, Vincent Price, Burt Reynolds, two members of The Beatles, Martha Raye, Red Skelton, Max Steiner, Jerry Buss, James Clavell, Ronald Reagan, and many more. During the Johnson Administration, Stancin’s paintings could be found in both Lyndon Johnson's and Hubert Humphrey's private offices. Lived on Maui, Hawaii, for several years, where he had his own gallery at Whaler’s Market Place on Front Street in Lahaina. Lived his last years in Palm Springs where he and his wife, Velinka, a sculptor and jewelry designer, had their own gallery and taught art lessons. John was a very prolific artist and made thousands of original paintings in oil and watercolor during his lifetime, and many hand-pulled lithographs. Several of his paintings were made into reproductions that were more affordable than originals. 

His younger brother, Kenneth Stancin, followed in his footsteps and became a prolific painter with his own unique style that was surreal in nature, and which exhibited the drafting skills he learned at the Chicago Art Institute and practiced as an electrical draftsman for aerospace manufacturers.

To us, his family, John J Stancin was “Uncle Jim,” and we were all very fond of him. He was always cheerful and kids loved him. He had one bright blue eye and one brown eye. Photo on FOTOS page.