ILLINOIS HISTORICAL ART PROJECT
HAROLD SCHULTZ
HAROLD SCHULTZ was born in Grafton, Wisconsin, on January 6, 1907, and studied at the Layton .School of Art in Milwaukee. He has painted in the Great Lakes region and in Mexico, is a member of the Chicago Society of Artists and the Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors Association, and has exhibited in Wisconsin traveling exhibits, the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago traveling shows and Increase Robinson's Studio Gallery. A one-artist exhibition of his work has been held at the Layton Art Gallery in Milwaukee. He has received honorable mention in a Chicago Society of Artists exhibition, and is represented in several private collections in the Middle West.
INTRODUCTION: To ask a painter to write a statement regarding his attitude toward his painting, is similar to asking a writer to paint a picture about his attitude toward his writing. In either case the means of expression is so foreign to that which is to be expressed that one is as difficult as the other. What results when the painter paints and when the writer writes, should, if he is a real artist, more clearly indicate his attitude toward his art than anything else. Each day's new experiences change in some measure my attitude toward my art, and for that reason what I believe today)', I may not believe tomorrow. Subject matter as such does not play an important part in my painting. By that I mean that any subject may be used in a painting. I believe that in painting a picture it is absolutely necessary for the artist to be saturated with the atmosphere of the environment of his subject. He must study and understand the community from which he is to draw his material. It is only after numerous sketches, and a thorough understanding of them, that the artist can skillfully select the most characteristic elements of his environment and, by fusing these elements with the element of esthetic feeling, create and construct a canvas of merit. The painter needs to be equipped with keen senses. With such equipment he is able to select from the great mass of material about him that which is beautiful, and when transported to the canvas make possible for others to see what without the painting they could not see. In this way, whether I paint in Mexico or Wisconsin, I have something which is peculiar to each. If the artist is not bound by art taboos or classic ideals, his individuality will be expressed as a natural outgrowth of his actual painting. A painting cannot help being in some measure a reflection of the artist provided he has allowed his mind to do free, natural, unbiased thinking. Color, form, and line become the fundamental compositional basis of the canvas, regardless of the subject matter I use. Each of these fundamentals is beautiful only as it is relative to the rest of the composition. Therefore, I believe that one is always a contribution to the other two. I am living now, not in times past, and since my canvases are part of me, I hope they are an expression of the age in which I live. As is obvious from the viewpoints I have stated above, my work is not influenced by the demands of the galleries or the art markets. I paint purely to satisfy an urge to create and express. Harold Schultz.