William Samuel Schwartz (February 23, 1896 – February 10, 1977) was an American artist who lived and worked in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Biography

Schwartz was born in Smorgon in

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

(then in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

) to Samuel Schwartz and Tauba Reznikoff. At the age of thirteen, he moved to the nearby city of

Vilna Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional u ...

to attend art school. Four years later, he emigrated to the United States and eventually enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After graduating, he put his art career on hold to concentrate on a budding career as an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

singer. When Schwartz returned to painting, he distinguished himself with dreamy, symbolist works and abstractions that tended to bewilder viewers. He also scandalized conservative audiences with numerous

lithographs Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

of nude women. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, Schwartz became an artist on the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

payroll. Working under the supervision of Increase Robinson in Chicago, he painted Regionalist works showing the countryside and small-town American life. It was not until the early 1940s that Schwartz returned to painting the esoteric imagery for which he had become known. Greatly influenced by European

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

, Schwartz painted strange biomorphic forms and apocalyptic scenes in many of his works. He became a well-known figure in Chicago, mostly due to his memorable handlebar mustache and eccentric persona. He was also one of a group of prominent Chicago artists—including

Ivan Albright Ivan Le Lorraine Albright (February 20, 1897 – November 18, 1983) was an American painter, sculptor and print-maker most renowned for his self-portraits, character studies, and still lifes. Due to his technique and dark subject matter, he is of ...

, Malvin Albright, and

Aaron Bohrod Aaron Bohrod (21 November 1907 – 3 April 1992) was an American artist best known for his trompe-l'œil still-life paintings. Education Bohrod was born in Chicago in 1907, the son of an emigree Bessarabian-Jewish grocer. Bohrod studied at ...

—that hung out at Riccardo's Restaurant and Gallery during the 1940s and 1950s. In his final years, Schwartz returned exclusively to painting abstracts; these paintings are considered among his best work. Schwartz began suffering from

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

around 1970 and died in Chicago on February 10, 1977. The

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

and the Joslyn Art Museum in

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

have several of Schwartz's works in their permanent collections.

External links

Schwartz on askart

Schwartz's Work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Guide to the William S. Schwartz Papers
Archives of American Art {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, William Samuel 1896 births 1977 deaths Jewish painters Jewish American artists Modern painters Belarusian painters Artists from Chicago School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Public Works of Art Project artists Federal Art Project artists Section of Painting and Sculpture artists Belarusian Jews 20th-century American Jews Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States

Biography

Further reading

External links