Jon Schueler
 |
Jon Schueler was born In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, in 1916. Trained as a navigator during World War 2, he was sent to Britain in 1942 and flew missions over France and Germany. Back in the States, during an unsettled period after the war, he had various writing, teaching and radio jobs until entering the California School of Fine Art on the GI Bill in 1948. Strongly influenced at first by the Abstract Expressionists, Schueler's own work gradually became less abstract as nature became a strong poetic force. It was to live in his paintings that he left New York in September of 1957 and came to Scotland, attracted by the continual moods and motion of the northern skies..
Clouds and sunlight play over the islands of Eigg and Rum |
He found his weather, the sense of the North, in Mallaig, where he spent the winter of 1957 until early spring of 1958. He was captivated by the continual change of colour in the sky, but his sense of adventure and danger was also attracted by his experiences at sea with local fishermen. This was followed by a year in Paris before returning to New York. It was always Schueler's intention to get back to Mallaig but, except for a brief visit in 1966 and a month on Skye in 1987 (when he started using watercolours), it wasn't until 1970, after a year of being head of painting at the University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana, that he had the resources. From 1970 - 75 lived in a rented house at Glasnacardoch and from then on, although he once again acquired a studio in New York in 1975, he would spend at least three months in Mallaig almost every year. From 1989 Schueler owned his Mallaig studio, but after his death in 1992 it was sold back to the previous owner. He exhibited regularly in the United States from the 1950s onwards. His first Scottish exhibition took place at the Mallaig Community Centre in 1971 prior to the Edinburgh showing at the Richard Demarco Gallery. Other exhibitions followed in the capital but by an odd coincidence his last exhibition during his lifetime was also in Mallaig, when the Highland Regional Council brought a travelling exhibition of his paintings to the same venue of 20 years previously. It was an exhibition which brought him deep satisfaction.
His work is currently handled by The ACA Galleries in New York and The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh.
Blue
Shadow Blues |
Excerpt from Jon Schueler's manuscript The Sound of Sleat.
The Sound of Sleat: A Painter's Life, edited by Magda Salvesen and
Diane Cousineau, was published by Picador USA in March 1999 and
can be purchased online from amazon.co.uk
 |
November 16 1970: The fisherman and
the artist, by what illusion are they driven? For the fishermen
are driven men. Of that I have no doubt. How else can a man exist
for days without sleep, doing the most incredibly arduous and dangerous
work, and then come back for more the next week and the next?. And
the artist is a driven man, and stakes his life upon his need. The
fisherman, to be sure, gambles the chances of a large catch and
big money. At times his stakes are high But this isn't enough for
the fire and passion demanded in the work What happens when he kills
himself - de Stael or Rothko? What is the inner question, secret
and demanding of his life? His end is as violent as his beginning.
In the summer of 1967 I went to sea with Jim Manson. It was a day
of a gale, a much predicted gale, and we were at the prawns off
the coast of Rum. The waves turned and twisted the boat and the
net fouled and twice we snared huge boulders but few prawns. It
was next to impossible to fish, but the men worked away. Finally
I asked Jim "Why did you come to sea when you knew there would be
gales like this?" Jim: "You don't know if you can fish until you
try, can you?" "No," I said, "you don't know ".
More information about Jon Schueler and his work can be found at www.jonschueler.com
