PAINTED SCREENS FOR BALTIMORE: A SHORT HISTORY
Baltimore's first screen was painted by William Oktavec in the summer of 1913. He came to Baltimore from Czechoslovakia via New York where he learned the nature of wire and paint on a job. He brought the one way screen idea with him. His first screen advertised the produce he sold in his 'Little Bohemia,' grocery on the corner of North Collington and Ashland Avenues in the heart of the new Czech community.
A neighbor admired his artwork and its practical bonus of preventing passersby from seeing inside his store. Wishing to maintain privacy in her rowhouse, she asked Oktavec to paint a screen for her front window, presented him with a colorful scene from a calender. Each of the neighbors demanded their own---for every window and door of the house. Adjacent communities in turn had at least one enterprising painter eager to imitate the new trend, accommodate clamoring residents, and make some easy cash as well.
In 1922, Oktavec opened The Art Shop on East Monument Street where in addition to his church restoration and retail framing and art supply businesses, he sold painted screens by the thousands and taught art classes to neighbors of all ages. One of his students, Johnny Eck www.johnnyeckmusum.com assisted three generations of Oktavecs when business was especially brisk. In the heyday of painted screens in the 1940s and 50s, resourceful men and women plied the streets of Baltimore by foot, by car and from modest storefronts, supplying as many as 100,000 screens to eager homeowners. Over the years the popularity of painted screens ebbed and flowed. First the World Wars dealt a blow, then air conditioners, then changing demographics. and changing definitions of modernity. Today renovation, replacement windows and the rising costs of custom art work add to the toll. Simultaneously a revolution in crafting and entrepreneurship has found an eager audience of artists and admirers to take the art form into the 21st century as its popularity spreads far beyond Baltimore.
