Andrzej Rzewski, 59

Cedarhurst resident inspired daughter’s creativity

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Creative and intellectual, Cedarhurst resident Andrzej Rzewski could paint and speak intelligently on a broad spectrum of topics.
“He was a brilliant man, who could tell you where any country in the world is, along with its capital and history,” said his daughter Monica Rzewski. “He was filled with stories, myths, legends and history.”
Andrzej Rzewski died at his home on Dec. 9. He was 59.
Born in Warsaw, Poland on April 24, 1955, he emigrated to the United States in 1981. That was two years after he and his wife, Margaret, were married on Sept. 7, 1979. They met in college in Poland, when they were both studying to be social workers.
“They never ran out of things to talk about after so many years of marriage,” Monica said with a measure of wonder. The family indulged in long walks around Hempstead Lake State Park, on the Long Beach boardwalk and throughout the Five Towns, along with the Polish custom of mushroom picking, which they usually did in Suffolk County. “He loved swimming off of Far Rockaway beach, back and forth, against the current,” Monica added.

He worked as a limousine driver, but Andrzej’s true passion was drawing and painting, and his home is decorated with his paintings, said Monica, who painted, drew and made little men out of toothpicks and acorns with her father.
“I always tried to be as good an artist as him, but I didn’t have the talent, which is what drove me to do photography,” said Monica, who works as a freelance photographer for the Herald newspapers. “He showed me the photographs his father used to take, he was an amateur photographer in Poland. “[My father] was always so encouraging and proud of me. He was so happy when I found a job teaching photography in Brooklyn; he told everyone about my achievements.”
A reader of science fiction, Andrzej also passed this interest on to his daughter, who first was regaled by her father’s verbal accounts when she was a young child, and then Monica said she read the stories as she matured.
The family held a small service with family and close friends last Saturday, which included songs by Andrzej’s favorite bands, the Doors and Queen. “Andrzej was a passionate man, who loved his family and would do anything and everything for my mom and I,” Monica said.