Biography

Born in 1904 in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, to a widowed mother, Frank Koci grew up in poverty. Yet even as a young man he was already sophisticated about the arts — literature, drama, and the polished military brass of Central European culture shaped his sensibility before he ever left home.

Leaving Pilsen at seventeen, Koci sailed to America and made his way to Texas, where he stayed with Czech relatives and — in a detail that speaks to his restless adaptability — became a milking champion. From there he drifted west to Hollywood, working as a night guard at the studios, where he first picked up a brush and began to paint. He also worked as a stuntman and appeared in several Charlie Chaplin films as an extra.

Later he joined the Merchant Marines, spending some thirty years at sea. Those decades of travel exposed him to diverse cultures, peoples, and experiences that became the wellspring of his creative vision. The alienation and estrangement of mid-century America — a world he observed as both insider and outsider — became central themes in his journals and paintings.

Settling in San Francisco, Koci began to paint seriously. He gave himself birthday parties where he would sell his paintings, and became a denizen of the North Beach art scene, exhibiting among the poets and painters who defined that world. He remained relatively unknown except for a small coterie of collectors who hoarded his work.

Koci worked with acrylic and house paints on unconventional surfaces: manufactured canvas, used jewelry trays, and all manner of excess wood scraps. His thick, expressive brushstrokes gave his figures a visceral, immediate quality. Mankind with all its warts and blemishes was his theme — the pathos of humanity rendered with sexual humor and a rare poetic simplicity and beauty. He died in 1983.