WILLIAM SAMUEL SCHWARTZ (1896-1977)
Available Work | Biography
Biography • William Samuel Schwartz (1896-1977)
At the age of seventeen William Schwartz emigrated from Smorgon, Russia to America. Schwartz moved for political, religious and economic reasons, as well as for the fact that he had family in America already. Schwartz had begun to study art at age six, but in earnest from 1908 to 1912 at the Vilna Art School in Poland, for which he had a scholarship. Upon finishing his artistic training, Schwartz left Russia for New York in 1913.
Schwartz worked briefly in New York, but found his lack of sufficient English hampered his efforts to break into the art community. While he gained English skills and needed support, Schwartz moved to Omaha in 1915 to live with his brother Max. Schwartz continued his art education at the Kellom School in Omaha and was lucky to find a mentor in the artist J. Laurie Wallace. It was under Wallace’s guidance that Schwartz began to put all his energies into his art. In 1916 Schwartz was accepted into the Art Institute of Chicago, thus leaving Omaha. He financed his studies with another passion of his, music. Schwartz was a tenor with the Bohemian Opera and also performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This duel artistic expression continued throughout the 1920s, with Schwartz being hailed a success by critics in Chicago and the Midwest.
By the late 1920s, when William Schwartz had established a strong reputation as painter, Schwartz discontinued his musical career. Music, however, continued to permeate his work and harmony became a central principal in it. In 1924 Schwartz began a series of abstract works which he called “symphonic forms” which he felt fused his aesthetic beliefs about music and art into one form. The Symphonic Forms paintings, which meld abstraction and realism, exhibit the influence of German artist Wassily Kandisnky, whose writings and artwork were on exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922.
Even though William Schwartz had been strongly influenced by the European avant-garde, he never belonged to the radical Chicago circles such as Cors Ardens or The No-Jury Society. Instead, Schwartz gravitated towards the Chicago Society of Arts. Upon graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago with honors, he experienced success from very early on and by 1923 won a prize for his painting In Violet at the Art Institute’s Twenty-Second Annual Exhibition of Artists of Chicago.
In the 1930s Schwartz became actively involved in the W.P.A. program. Between 1935 and 1943, Schwartz was employed by the Federal Art Project, gaining commission for murals in many public buildings, including three US Post Office murals in Illinois, as well as murals in Wisconsin, and Iowa. Schwartz also created murals for the Public Library at the Illinois State University in Chicago. In this period, Schwartz was very productive and museums throughout the United States and the rest of the world purchased his works. Schwartz was also able to get the more exclusive WPA public building projects, such as for the White House and the Department of Labor.
William Schwartz was invited to exhibit at many museum invitationals. Schwartz won the prize for best contemporary art in 1925, 1926, and 1936 at the Detroit Institute of Art. As one of Chicago’s top artists, Schwartz regularly exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago where he received prizes in 1927, 1928, 1930, 1936, 1945, and 1952. He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1927 to 1931 and again in 1942 and 1958. Schwartz participated in the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s biennials from 1935 to 1941.
William Samuel Schwartz died in his Chicago studio in 1977. A traveling exhibition of William Schwartz’s paintings was held at the Grand Rapids Art Museum and the Illinois State Museum from 1984 to 1986. His work can be found in the following public collections: Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Detroit Institute of Art, MI; Dallas Museum of Fine Art, TX; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE; Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL; among others.