Lenore Tetkowski

Lenore (Lee) Kantor was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1923. She graduated from Newark State Teachers College (now Kean University), became an art educator in 1944, and taught a variety of craft arts. She was introduced to weaving during the early 1940s, and ever since she explored “the magic of the loom.” Lee married Clement (Clem) Tetkowski in 1944 when he was on a three-day pass form the U.S. Army. They eventually moved to Grand Island, New York, where they designed and built their home, and where Lee taught art at the high school, while Clem became an art education professor at Buffalo State College. In 1961 they started a study-abroad program where classes were held at the University of Siena and at the Institute of Art in Siena, Italy. The couple and their three children Diane, Mira, and Neil, lived in Siena and traveled in Europe. Back in Buffalo, Clem became chair of the Design Department and Lee earned her master’s degree at the college in 1966. She also attended and led workshops for the Buffalo Weaver’s Guild.

Lee and Sylvia Rosen were friends for about fifty years, “starting when my husband, Dr. Clem Tetkowski hired her in the design department." Many of the weavings in her bequest are illustrated in Lenore Kantor Tetkowski: Textiles produced to accompany the 2012 exhibition presented in the Nancy Dryfoos Gallery at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. Also of note, the Tetkowski Family created an endowment in 2020 as a biannual award in support of artists and, secondarily, to not-for-profit arts organizations, which could include studio art and design, art education, community service, international education, architecture, and city planning.