Sr. Mary Stanisia

Sister Maria Stanisia, S.S.N.D., (May 4, 1878 – January 28, 1967) was an American Catholic artist and painter. She was a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Monica Kurkowski was born on May 4, 1878 in Chicago or Germany. Her parents were Francis, a wood carver, and Katherine Kurkowski, who had changed their surname to Kurk after they arrived in the United States. They were originally from German-partitioned Poland. The family were part of the St. Stanislaus Polish parish and Stanisia attended its elementary school. She attended the Academy of Our Lady before she left her home to study with Tadeusz Żukotyński in Europe while still a young girl. Żukotyński, an artist born in Poland, taught Stanisia to paint religious art, including murals.

She returned to the United States in 1893 and three years later, following a religious calling she had felt since she was a young girl, moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and entered the novitiate of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Stanisia spent the next three years in training as a member of the religious congregation, at which time she took her religious name. In March 1899, Sister Mary Stanisia took her permanent religious vows at St. Mary's in Michigan City, Indiana. That year she painted The Sacred Heart of Jesus, her first known painting.

Stanisia taught art at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Marinette, Wisconsin and gave private art lessons beginning that fall. She taught there until 1905, when she was assigned to St. Mary's Academy in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where she spent the next two years. In 1907, Sister Stanisia was assigned to the Academy of Our Lady in Chicago, where she studied as a girl. She established an art studio, large enough to create murals, and created and was director of the school's Fine Arts program.

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