With over three decades of professional experience, physicist Mark Thek leads Esterline Power Systems as the Los Angeles-based company’s president. A dedicated family man, Mark Thek takes pride in his relatives’ accomplishments, including those of his late uncle, Paul Thek.

1. PAUL THEK - AN UNDERAPPRECIATED
AMERICAN ARTIST
By Mark Thek

2. INTRODUCTION
 With over three decades of professional experience, physicist
Mark Thek leads Esterline Power Systems as the Los Angeles-
based company’s president. A dedicated family man, Mark Thek
takes pride in his relatives’ accomplishments, including those of
his late uncle, Paul Thek.
Born in Brooklyn in 1933, Paul Thek was a painter, sculptor, and
pioneer of installation art who was active in the art world for 10
years before attaining critical success in the mid-1960s. During
that time, Thek began creating his “meat pieces,” which are small,
minimalist, wax sculptures meant to resemble flesh.
The artist spent the 1970s in Europe, where he found even more
success creating very large ephemeral environments out of
material that would otherwise be considered garbage.

3. PAUL THEK
 Despite his newly found acceptance in Europe, Thek
returned to New York to find that not many in the art
world remembered him or his earlier work.
Until his death in 1988, Thek supported himself by
bagging groceries and washing floors while creating
art that largely went unnoticed. However, Thek’s
reputation grew considerably after his death, and his
work can now be seen in a number of collections,
including those at New York’s Whitney Museum of
American Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.