Seweryn was born in Tarnów, graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Tarnów, and studied at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts. He immigrated to Chicago in the mid-1970s. The son of a 16th Infantry Regiment officer killed in the Katyn massacre, he later designed and constructed a memorial commemorating the Katyn massacre in Niles, Illinois; this was inaugurated in 2009. He was among those killed along with President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, First Lady Maria Kaczyńska, and many other prominent Polish leaders in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash near Smolensk.