Władysław William "Willy" Wilkanowski (November 15, 1886 in Działyń, Poland – December 8, 1954, Long Island, US) was a Polish-American violin-maker, guitar-maker and violinist. He was a very productive luthier, known for making over 5000 violins and 100 violas with his staff at his workshop. He also created 30 unique, high-end archtop guitars, one of which, the Wilkanowski Airway W-4, was famously owned by Johnny Cash since the 1980s, when it also was featured as the centerfold in the Guitar World magazine.
Wilkanowski was also known to be a family man, doting on his wife Amelia (1886 – May 6, 1952), with whom he had raised 9 surviving children. When Amelia got sick, in 1950 he moved his workshop to their Long Island home to be close to her and look after her. After she died of the illness in 1952, he became very depressed and despondent without her. William stopped making instruments altogether and lost his source of income, which negatively affected his finances, adding to his depressive state. In early December 1954, he finally committed suicide and was laid to rest next to Amelia on December 13, 1954.
Early life
Wilkanowski was born on November 15, 1886 as listed on his grave and on his draft card, and the year 1886 indicated as estimated in several census records of New York. His obituary states his age to be 69 in December 1954, which would then indicate the birth year as 1885. The draft card of 1942 reveals his birth place to be Działyń, but it is unclear, which of the 4 places of this name in Poland it could have been.
According to Fairfield's book, William built his first violin already at age 9 (in 1895), which would indicate that he came from a luthier or a musical family. In 1903, by the age of 17, he was a trained violin maker.
As many Poles of the time would leave the poverty and the Russian and German nationalist oppression of partitioned Poland, he joined his family in the United States. The year 1904, when he would be 17–18 years old, is listed as year of his immigration in the 1920 New York census, where his name is misspelled William Wikanoski and mistranscribed as Wikanski. As countless Poles would do to assimilate in the United States, he changed his Polish first name Wladyslaw to the English name with the same initial, William, which would not be given as a child name in Poland, unless as the German form Wilhelm in the German speaking partitions of Poland. In the New York census records, there are several people listed with the last name Wilkanowski. At least one male relative of Wilkanowski already resided in New York – the father of his cousin Maximilian, born in New York. In 1905, William and his wife Amelia had their daughter Helen; several children followed, listed as 7 children, all born in New York and speaking Polish and English, as listed in the census of 1920.
Initially, William worked in the shop of Oliver Ditson of Boston. In the 1930s, he worked for Fred Gretsch (New York City), out of his own workshop and store in 58 Nassau Street, Brooklyn, New York. William was also a violinist himself and was a member of a polka band in the 1920s.
Career in the United States
He was listed as a violin maker in Brooklyn by 1933, and at least one violin made in Brooklyn dates to 1924. From 1937 to 1941, he worked in both an era and a location renowned for the jazz guitar. Gretsch offered Wilkanowski's violins in a 1940 flyer with the text "his own personal work…no other hand touches them." His violins were offered from $50–150.
Wilkanowski is thought to have produced 5,000 violins and 100 violas by 1942. Some of the higher quality violins were marked with an inlayed logo of the stylized letter W; these instruments are thought to be entirely of his own making, while many of the others were made in the shops with assistants. The Gretsch Company released the Synchromatic line during the early '40s also, which were also archtop guitars, but shared no other similarities with Wilkanowski guitars. His role in the Synchromatic is not known.
Although known for his violins, Wilkanowski also produced a limited number of archtop guitars. The guitars were never catalogued. By 1942 he had sold 30 of these instruments, each unique in appointments and features, at $400 each, except for two deluxe Airway guitars, sold for $600. This price was in line with what was being charged for a D’Angelico New Yorker, or a Gibson Guitar Corporation Super 400. There is no evidence of guitars made by Wilkanowski after 1943, instead he continued making and successfully selling violins until 1952.