Walter Gaudnek was as colorful and bold as the art he created. Theatrical designer Joseph Rusnock was remembered as caring and creative.
Both men are being mourned at the University of Central Florida, where they were fixtures for generations of students in artistic fields of study. They both died at the end of October; Gaudnek, who kept teaching until two years ago, at age 91, and Rusnock, who retired in 2018, at age 78.
A native of Bohemia, Gaudnek lived a storied life, including enduring forced labor as a child in Czechoslovakia and forced relocation on a cattle train to Germany.
“I always had a sense of humor in the most awful situations. I could always make people laugh,” he told me in 2020. “I’m a survivor.”
There were happier times, too: A Fulbright Scholarship in 1957 followed by selection for the New York Museum of Modern Art New Talent Exhibition. Gaudnek created a set of Ten Commandments for Pope Francis, and has a museum named for him in Altomunster, Germany.
He became known for his ability to mix religious symbolism with pop art and surrealism, as well as his philosophy of polymorphism, which let paintings evolve over time.
The self-described “workaholic” retired in 2020 after 50 years of teaching at UCF. As usual, he went out with flair. At an exhibition of his colorful pop-art styled work at the UCF Art Gallery that year, he jovially held court, sharing his thoughts on today’s students — “more spoiled today, but at the same time, more talented” — and on teaching.
“If a student had a little bit of talent, I made a lot of it,” Gaudnek said at the time, a twinkle in his eye. “But if there was a student with nothing, blame God, not me.”
Rusnock spent more than 30 years at UCF making students look good through his work in lighting, set design and other technical areas of stagecraft.
“Joseph Rusnock was a great and caring colleague,” undergraduate acting coordinator Be Boyd told UCF Today. “He was a terrifically creative designer.”
During his long tenure, Rusnock served as resident scenic and lighting designer for 78 productions, from “Relatively Speaking” in 1985 to his final production, “Boy Gets Girl,” in 2018.
In 1994, he was instrumental on a particularly monumental achievement — production of “The Kentucky Cycle,” a seven-hour behemoth featuring 85 characters in stories stretching more than 200 years.
His set design for the two-part epic would win him praise from Orlando Sentinel theater critic Elizabeth Maupin, something that happened with regularity during his career.
His prowess was recognized outside Central Florida, as well: In both 2008 and 2010, Rusnock was honored with an Excellence in Design Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.
Born in Pennsylvania, Rusnock studied theater at Penn State and received a master of fine arts degree from the University of Minnesota. Before coming to Florida he worked at the Guthrie Theatre and the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, among other gigs.
Rusnock loved animals and gardening, especially cultivating Bonsai plants — which is an art form in its own right.
In tribute to Rusnock, Theatre UCF will showcase his work in its lobby during the Nov. 10-20 production of “As You Like It.”
Find me on Twitter @matt_on_arts, facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Want more theater and arts news and reviews? Go to orlandosentinel.com/arts.