George Schneeman (March 11, 1934 – January 27, 2009) was an American
painter who lived in
Tuscany
it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Citizenship
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 = Italian
, demogra ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
.
Life and work
George Schneeman was born on March 11, 1934, in
St. Paul, Minnesota. He received a B.A. in philosophy and English literature from St Mary's College,
Winona, Minnesota
Winona is a city in and the county seat of Winona County, Minnesota, Winona County, in the U.S. state, state of Minnesota. Located in bluff country on the Mississippi River, its most noticeable physical landmark is Sugar Loaf (Winona, Minnesota ...
, and then began graduate work in English literature at the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
. He then enlisted in the army. Having shown an aptitude for languages, he was posted to
Verona
Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...
, Italy.
The following excerpt is from an autobiographical statement Schneeman wrote in 2007 on the occasion of an exhibition at the ''Instituto Italiano di Cultura'':
In 1966, when it came time to decide whether our three boys were going to grow up as Americans or Tuscan peasants, we moved to New York City, where we have lived ever since.
In Italy, Schneeman had met
Renzo Sommaruga, a well known Italian artist who lived in
Verona
Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...
and with whom was born a deep and lasting friendship and with whom he shared the passion for painting and poetry. He also had met two young New York writers,
Peter Schjeldahl
Peter Charles Schjeldahl (; March 20, 1942 – October 21, 2022) was an American art critic, poet, and educator. He was noted for being the head art critic at ''The New Yorker'', having earlier written for ''The Village Voice'', ''ARTnews'', and ...
and
Ron Padgett
Ron Padgett (born June 17, 1942, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School. ''Great Balls of Fire'', Padgett's first full-length collection of poems, was published in 1969. He ...
. On his move to New York City, Schneeman immediately became part of a group of poets centered around the
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery and began to work extensively with them, painting many portraits of these poets, producing flyers for their readings, covers for their books and collaborating with them extensively. Schneeman is known for being one of the most prolific collaborators in a milieu frequently characterized by its collaborative spirit; over approximately forty years, he collaborated on hundreds of pieces of art with, amongst others,
Ted Berrigan
Ted Berrigan (November 15, 1934 – July 4, 1983) was an American poet.
Early life
Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1934. After high school, he spent a year at Providence College before joining the U.S. Army. After ...
,
Anne Waldman
Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945) is an American poet.
Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activ ...
,
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
,
Larry Fagin
Larry Fagin (July 21, 1937 – May 27, 2017) was an American poet, editor, publisher, and teacher, and a member of the New York School.
Biography
Born in Far Rockaway, New York City, Larry Fagin grew up in New York, Hollywood, and Europe. He bega ...
, Dick Gallup, Michael Brownstein,
Lewis MacAdams
Lewis MacAdams (October 12, 1944 – April 21, 2020) was an American poet, journalist, political activist, and filmmaker.[Alice Notley
Alice Notley (born November 8, 1945) is an American poet. Notley came to prominence as a member of the second generation of the New York School of poetry—although she has always denied being involved with the New York School or any specific mo ...](_blank)
,
Bill Berkson
William Craig Berkson (August 30, 1939 – June 16, 2016) was an American poet, critic, and teacher who was active in the art and literary worlds from his early twenties on.
Early life and education
Born in New York City on August 30, 1939, Bil ...
, Tom Clark, Steve Katz, Ted Greenwald and
Lewis Warsh
Lewis Warsh (9 November 1944 – 15 November 2020) was an American poet, visual artist, professor, prose writer, editor, and publisher. He was a principal member of the second generation of the New York School poets,; however, he has said that †...
. Many of these collaborations were documented in ''Painter Among Poets: The Collaborative Art of George Schneeman'', edited by Ron Padgett (Granary Books, 2004). Scheenman's artwork has been featured on ''Comes Through in the Call Hold'', a recording with
Clark Coolidge
Clark Coolidge (born February 26, 1939) is an American poet.
Background
As a teenager, Coolidge attended Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island. Coolidge attended Brown University, where his father taught in the music department. After ...
,
Anne Waldman
Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945) is an American poet.
Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activ ...
, and
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Mo ...
, released by
Fast Speaking Music Fast Speaking Music is a label founded by poet Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye, in New York City. Releases by Fast Speaking Music have prominently featured jazz, the literary, and performance art. Its recordings have been made featuring poets, musicia ...
.
In the 1970s, Schneeman turned to
fresco painting, which he had learned in Italy, and in the 1980s, he began to paint on
ceramics
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
, eventually learning to throw and slip-cast his own ceramics. From the late 1990s onwards, he spent part of the year in Tuscany, Italy, where he began to paint
landscapes
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...
once again.
Schneeman died of
heart failure on January 27, 2009.
Reception and critical assessment
Schneeman showed at the Holly Solomon Gallery from 1976 through 1982, and at the Donahue / Sosinski in 2002 and 2002. From 1982 till 1996, he mounted his own solo exhibitions every two years at his studio on the
Lower East Side, showing paintings and collages along with his ceramics. In 2006, he had a retrospective exhibition in a private home on the Lower East Side, which included a comprehensive selection of his work and various media: large figures on canvas,
egg tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...
landscapes on board, oil pastel drawings, fresco portraits, collages, ceramics, and missed media collaborations with poets. He received several grants and awards, including the Rosenthal Award from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
(1969), a
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
grant (1980) and a grant from the Fund for Poetry (1996).
As ''
Art in America'' has noted, Schneeman was largely self-taught, and though his work was critically well received, he never experienced sustained commercial success during his life. Schneeman was wary of art-world careerism, and viewed the relationship between his work as an artist and his broader life with family as friends as one; from his days as an Italian ''contadini'' (farmer) living a rural life in Tuscany, he designed and built most of his homes, including furniture, toys, musical instruments and dining ware. The art critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote about the close relationship between Schneeman's art and life, commenting, "The art, craft, and design of George Schneeman are all of a piece, as if these disciplines had never been opposed ... and otherwise split off from the flow of life. The light, slightly roughed-up sensuousness of his approach to everything and the homey frugality of his means have a common sense so uncommon it's exotic. His work is good in the sense of good quality and also in the sense of goodness, a humanly right relation of parts to whole ... It's about pleasure as a habit ...". The poet Ron Padgett, a friend and long-time collaborator, has written of Schneeman's art that, "It is beautiful – mild, balanced, well-drawn, firm, straightforward, and sometimes serene. It is also light, modern, attractive, clear, and likeable. It is not outrageous, declamatory, shocking, sneering, trendy, bizarre, or shrill. It is good. Sometimes it is affectionate."
[(Padgett, quoted by Bill Berkson, in Painter Among Poets, edited by Ron Padgett, Granary Books, New York 2004, p. 96.)]
References
External links
George Schneeman - Selected Collaborations with Poets (42 images)*
ttp://www.cyberpoems.com/Babbo George Schneeman - Enduring Presence* https://web.archive.org/web/20110404035400/http://www.cueartfoundation.org/george-schneeman.html
* https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/arts/design/31schneeman.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schneeman, George
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni
Painters from Tuscany
Painters from New York City
1934 births
2009 deaths
20th-century American male artists