ILLINOIS HISTORICAL ART PROJECT

Part II

At the Art Institute in the beginning of his student years, Schwartz had met Anthony Angarola,[1] a kindred soul, who was to become his best friend,[2] painting partner and mentor; one can observe their friendship through Schwartz’ painting Anthony and Myself.[3] In this work of satin smoothness, the two are portrayed in an almost marital pose, Angarola sitting in a chair with Schwartz standing behind him. It is one of the few self-portraits of Schwartz in which his hair is neatly combed, perhaps to mirror Angarola’s style. Likewise, it is one of the few self-portraits of Schwartz depicting serenity on his part, perhaps allowing the inner serenity, which he found in the company of the other artist, to be seen.

 

During 1928-1929, after more than ten years of close contact and friendship, they had been separated physically by Angarola’s Guggenheim grant, which he had used to travel, study and paint in Europe.[4] Though not in corporeal contact, the friends kept in constant correspondence, sometimes with Chicago artist gossip from Schwartz and tales of European adventures from Angarola. In 1929, Schwartz sent Angarola, then in Paris, a strange request pertaining to the former’s earlier days in Vilna:

 

“Tony I am going to ask you something which will not be hard for you to do. I understand that there is a man by the name of SOUTIN who is the leader of the group Modigliani used to be leader [sic] I would like you to find out his address and send it to me. Now I’ll tell you why I want it. When I was studying art in Russia we had a fellow by that same name who was a good friend of mine and were in the same class for four years, it seems to me that it is the same boy and I would like to get in touch with him. I am sending a photo of myself at the time I left Russia, if it is the same Soutin, he will recognize me from it, get one of the boys that can speak Jewish or French to go with you and if he is as important in Paris as some of the boys speak of him, it will be worth while for you to meet him. Hoping you will find him and please save the photograph as it is the only one I got.”[5]

 

Several weeks later, Schwartz wrote again:

 

“Now Tony, I wonder if you have seen this Soutin fellow and if it is the one I know, of course my name was different in Russia, and that is why I sent you a photo and on the back of it is my Russian name, it sure would be interesting if it is the same as we both starved plenty when we were students but we both worked like hell and were happy”[6]

 

There is no evidence of any Angarola meeting with Soutine and the Russian name on the photograph was never revealed. Schwartz’ only verified connection with Soutine seems to be the Zoromskis essay of 1953, ten years after Soutine’s demise.

 

While it was not Schwartz who died in August 1929, he must have felt that way. On August 15, 1929, in the early morning hours of his return to Chicago, Angarola died unexpectedly, an event that shattered Schwartz. Although connected during their time apart by correspondence, Schwartz, for a year, had not had the physical support and artistic criticism of his best friend. Immediately upon Angarola’s return to Chicago, Schwartz was expecting to interact with his artistic soul mate again, to seek his approval and a critique of his new work done in Tony’s absence.[7] Angarola’s unanticipated death severed the connection that had sustained and supported Schwartz for so many years.

 

Schwartz was so stricken that he refused to paint for several weeks. The work that finally painted out his grief, La Commedia, is complex with jumbled, layered metaphoric images.[8] Among the images is a rear central crucifixion figure behind Angarola’s corpse, which lies in an open coffin, viewed by a female figure. In the lower left corner, a disheveled Schwartz is working on an easel painting of a female figure, possibly the same one that stands before the coffin, a figure whom Chapman described as the “…allegory of poverty…represented by an emaciated mother sheltering her gaunt offspring.”[9] Whatever the alleged meanings of the piece, it was the cathartic release of his pain and fears, the acceptance of the end of his reliance on Angarola for critique and creative stimulus. [10] It was, in short, the embracing of his artistic solitude and dependence on himself for his own success as an artist.

 

Schwartz had met his future wife, Mona Turner in 1923, at a studio party after his concert.[11] She served initially as his model,[12] an enterprise that grew to friendship and love, as shown in Schwartz’ 1935 painting, Autobiography, (oil on canvas, 30 x 23 15/16 inches, location unknown).[13] In 1939, they wed.[14] In their newspaper wedding announcement,[15] Mona was listed as Miss Mona Dresner and the article indicated that she “…conducts a private kindergarten in the Park Lane hotel on Chicago’s northside.” Mona had two children from her previous marriage, Bernard and Phyllis Dresner, (later Mrs. Robert Helford).[16] Schwartz later described his wife:

 

“ ‘She is my everything,’ is his way of describing Mona, who chauffeurs, mothers, companions, and manages the artist to their mutual heart’s content, in a studio apartment above Riccardo’s.”[17]

 

Mona probably knew more about Schwartz than anyone except his mother and siblings.[18] None left us information about his early life in Russia, “…and he seldom spoke about it.”[19] However, one can surmise aspects of his Russian childhood from many of his paintings, the previously discussed Yosel, the Golum, being an example. Each artist is born somewhere and his childhood experiences in that place become encoded into his psyche, mingling with all the later experiences and training of his life. Many of Schwartz’ earlier paintings were peopled with Eastern European peasant-folk and the surroundings and buildings one would imagine to be their normal environs, dating in appearance to the turn of the twentieth century or earlier.[20] These same people and houses were common in his early works.[21]

 

Although these paintings might indicate an artist of possible Eastern European origin, they could, by no means, be called typically Russian, containing no folk art items, or grayed-out wispy angels flying over the town. Memories of his place of birth, instead, became a vehicle for his use of saturated color. One of Schwartz’s strongest memories of Russia is its color—fantastic architecture, costumes, and peasants.[22]

 

In addition to using images from his past, Schwartz often reused images from one painting to another, many times including objects from his studio.[23] Donkey and Mums, (1940, oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches, current location unknown,) contains a small ceramic planter, a blue-green donkey with two attached yellow basket-looking pannier/planters holding a pair of small jade plants juxtaposed with a vase of chrysanthemums. This same planter is seen in the Green Couch,[24] (also 1940, oil on canvas, 26 x 30 inches, initially in the collection of Charles R. Prilik of Chicago. This painting depicts a corner of Schwartz’ studio/living area,[25] featuring a couch with a kelly-green slipcover with white leaf-like stripes, on which Mona semi-reclines. This painting also depicts one of Schwartz’ other paintings[26] hanging on the wall over the couch, probably showing the reality of the area at the time. Still Life, (1929, 30 x 36 inches, collection of Dallas Museum of Art,) portrays a still life with a wine bottle and apples on a tilting Cezannesque table, with the formal flower arrangement of Lithograph # 18,[27] in the background, or perhaps the actual lithograph was represented in the painting.[28] This illustrates Schwartz’ penchant for reworking a piece in multi-media, one image perhaps spanning lithography,[29] watercolor and oil on canvas.

 

A Corner in My Studio, (1938, oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches, formerly collection of Dr. & Mrs. Samuel Kaufman of Chicago) is essentially a multiple-in-one painting. It contains a self-portrait, albeit a rear view, of the painter in his studio, an area apparently separated from the main room by a deep purple velvet drape. Above the ubiquitous green couch hang two paintings, the upper one, a composition mostly comprised of a huge triangular tree with what appears to be a sort of grotto containing a statue in its basal foliage, and the other seeming to be one of his Symphonic Forms. The sculpture, An Old Man,[30] (1930, medium, dimensions and current location unknown,) sits on a pedestal, with another Symphonic Form-like painting below it. Another person, perhaps male and very possibly a student of Schwartz’s,[31] sits on the floor, (right foreground) appearing to be painting or drawing.

 

While called a cubist by some,[32] it could be that Schwartz’s the spare wedge like shapes of cubism came, rather, from his experience with lithography where he often formed the image as much by the use of negative space as positive,[33] a characteristic which followed through to his subsequent paintings, giving them a cubistic appearance.

 

It may have been that, after Angarola’s death, acquaintances of the Angarola/Schwartz artistic duo hypothesized that Schwartz would fade away as a working artist. The actuality was completely the opposite. Schwartz bloomed, and, working hard, began seriously exhibiting in galleries and exhibitions, both juried and invitational, winning prizes and commissions for the rest of his long life, as will be discussed further on, as well as developing a cadre of loyal collectors. These circumstances allowed the artist to support himself and his family principally through his art.[34] By 1957, Schwartz was paid $2,000 to $3,000 for a painting,[35] an amount that, with the sale of about six paintings per year, would allow quite a reasonable living at that time.

 

Indeed, although Angarola had been deeply missed in 1928-1929, Schwartz must have been working frantically. Manuel Chapman, who was to become his biographer with the book, William S. Schwartz, a Study, had to have been working on the text during the time of difficulty after Angarola’s death, for the book to be published in 1930. Also during this time, “…moving pictures of Mr. Schwartz at work in his Chicago studio were made for exhibition at an ‘art’ movie theater there [Chicago]; and the film now is being shown elsewhere.”[36]

 

Schwartz was not one to join reactionary vanguard groups,[37] such as Carl Hoeckner (1883-1972), Rudolph Weisenborn (1881-1974) and Raymond Jonson’s (1891-1982) “Cors Ardens”[38] or the same group’s No Jury Society of Artists.[39] A member of the Chicago Society of Artists, rather, he worked within the system, submitting to the traditional mainstream conservative juries, with whom he had some successes.

 

Early on, Schwartz described his style of painting as “’progressive contemporary painting,’ rather than modernistic,”[40] indicating that he became interested in this type of work while studying under Buehr at the Art Institute of Chicago. Twenty-seven years later, he spoke somewhat differently, saying that he had been raised with modern art and had helped it come of age:

 

“My abstracts [the Symphonic Forms series] are a little different, I call them abstract forms… Symphonic means harmonious — in color, line and form. What the musical composer does for the ear, I do for the eye.”[41]

 

Never bound to one style or medium, Schwartz alternately created abstractions and realistic or representational scenes[42] in oil, watercolor, conté crayon, pastel, pencil and ink, as well as clay. While classed by many as a modernist, Schwartz was rarely classed with the extreme modern abstractionists, but called, rather:

 

“…a neoteric [modernist] on the conservative side, in that his artistic approach is as clear as an autumn sky. He presents no ponderous problem, no shocking theory and leaves the senses better off for contact with his intent. His brushwork is gracefully free of contortion and artifice and makes its point without fuss or fume. He likes color as such and makes no bones about using the richest at his command to achieve the simple objective of visual pleasure through harmony of color with line and form.”[43]

 

No matter what his painting medium, Schwartz was obsessed with color, leading a writer to comment that his work was easily recognized through the use of “…favorite certain deep reds and blues, as well as an individual hue of green.”[44] One observer mentioned that he must have had stock in an aniline company based on his lavish use of brilliant color.[45] Schwartz,’ then unconventional, use of color was elucidated by biographer Chapman:[46]

 

“Color was his primary interest…Each color was used separately. By using pigments very “thin” and with almost no white, he attained lucent effects in his abstract color orchestrations. The glow of his painted canvases gave them the quality of stained glass. Schwartz may be characterized by the interior luminosity of his pristine colors…Color was his medium. Every object was given a transfigured existence in color….”

 

This use of saturated color was critically successful, as shown by the awards he won, juried and invitational exhibits in which he participated, and collections into which his works were purchased.[47] His awards listing included many of the big name prizes and ran consistently through the years; beginning, in Detroit, in 1925 and 1926 with the previously discussed Albert Kahn Prize and Temple Beth El Sisterhood First Prize.[48]

 

Selected group exhibitions for Schwartz include, A Century of Progress, Chicago, 1933.[49] Likewise, in 1933, 49 Chicago Artists, Paintings and Prints, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and Painting and Sculpture From Sixteen American Cities, at the Museum of Modem Art, New York. The Museum of Modem Art was again an exhibition site for Schwartz in 1936, with the show New Horizons in American Art. The Brooklyn Museum, New York, was Schwartz’ big show in 1937 with the Ninth Biennial: International Exhibition of Watercolor. His 1939 exhibitions were the Biennial, at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C. and The New York World’s Fair. The 1940’s exhibits encompassed, in 1941, Contemporary American Water Colors, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; in 1942, Between the Two Wars: Prints by American Artists 1914-1941, at the Whitney Museum of American Art; and, in 1942, Artists for Victory: An Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.[50]

 

The Associated American Artists, in both New York and Chicago, with whom Schwartz dealt, as part of their stable, from 1943-1948, taking part in exhibitions as well as putting paintings in some of their traveling shows, was a source of sales as well as major commissions.[51] It was through this organization that Schwartz received several industrial commissions, one with Hiram Walker Distilleries, for whom he did a painting that was used as a magazine advertisement for the company.[52] The painting, Whiskey Rolling in the Rackhouse to Age, was not only a depiction of a man rolling barrels, a portrait of the distillery; it was one of Schwartz’ signature paintings, with his vivid color use and a huge roiling sky topping the barrel area and dominating the painting.[53]

 

Niagara Alkali, a chemical plant in Niagara, New York also commissioned a painting.[54] The resultant painting, showing a portion of the plant with twin smokestacks, backed by the requested “violent sky,” was used in an advertisement announcing their “new and expanded facilities to meet the unprecedented demands of war.”[55] The Standard Oil,[56] Pittsburgh, commission[57]was initially for three pieces in either watercolor or oil; a commission that ultimately became six watercolors.[58]

 

Through the Associated American Artists, the Encyclopedia Britannica[59] purchased Near Northside Chicago, (1935, oil on canvas, 36 x 40 inches, Encyclopedia Britannica Collection, University of Chicago.) Another Schwartz painting sold through the auspices of the Association of American Artists was Walnut Street, Baraboo [WI] (prior to March 30, 1945, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, sold for $750 on March 30, 1945, buyer unconfirmed, but it probably was the American People’s Encyclopedia, in whose collection it was placed.)[60] This same painting was reproduced in color in the American People’s Encyclopedia.[61]

 

Today, Schwartz is well represented in the collections of many institutions not the least of which is the Art Institute of Chicago.[62] An anonymous donor was a double benefactor for Schwartz and seven museums throughout the country when he donated a Schwartz painting to each of them. Dale O’Brien and Howard G. Mayer[63] seemed to be the liaisons between the artist and the museums. The seven museums were contacted with the inquiry as to whether or not they would accept a Schwartz painting for their collection. All replied in the affirmative. Schwartz sent a grouping of four or five paintings to each of the museums. Each chose the piece they wanted and the anonymous patron paid for it, and it was shipped to them. The seven museums include:

 

Art Institute of Chicago—Chicago Harbor, 1931; San Francisco Museum—Symphonic Forms #6, 1932; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha—The Ex-trapper, 1937; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Philadelphia— Scene in Sheboygen, 1942; The Henry Gallery, University of Wash, Seattle— Watchman’s Tower, 1942; The Santa Barbara Museum of Art—A Southern Tenement, 1948; Denver Art Museum—Legend of Morning, 1950[64]

 

National collections include the United States Library of Congress and Department of Labor.

 

Schwartz’ awards did not come about by chance; rather, they were the result of the imaginative output of a man who was as much cerebral and analytical as artistic. William Samuel Schwartz theorized about his artwork and its philosophy as much as he applied the pigment to canvas or paper. This intellectualization led to the formation of his credo, written while he lived at 102 East Hubbard[65] in Chicago:

 

“All my Life: I have been a musician as well as a painter. In both music and art, I believe that the great thing is the creation, in an individual way, of harmony. In art, among the old masters as well as among the contemporary artists, the harmony may be of three sorts—of color, of form and of line. In looking at nature, therefore, I search for materials which may be interpreted and manipulated until they become unified wholes that reveal the sorts of harmony which are representative of my own personality—my thoughts and my feelings. I feel that the mastery of only one of these elements—color, form or line is unsatisfactory. Difficult though it may be, I strive for the simultaneous mastery of all three.”

 

It is easy for the observer of about a quarter of a century after Schwartz’ demise to see, from the works which he created, that he mastered his all-important triad of elements, color, form and line. William Schwartz was never monetarily rich, rather, with this triple mastery; he made his viewers’ lives richer, giving the beholder an invigorating glimpse into the world as seen through the prism of this artist’s imagination.

 

[1]See Angarola essay by Richard Angarola, Connie Poore, and Joel S. Dryer for further information.

[2]Op. cit., Chapman, William S. Schwartz, A Study, 1930, p.37.

[3]1924, oil on canvas 36 x 42 inches, collection Ondine Angarola Langford.

[4]See Angarola essay for particulars.

[5]Angarola family archives, Letter from Schwartz to Angarola, 3/15/1929, pp. 3-4.

[6]Angarola family archives, letter from Schwartz to Angarola, 4/1/1929, p.3.

[7]Angarola family archives, letter from Schwartz to Angarola, 4/15/1929, p.2. “You have a surprise coming when you’ll see my latest work, it is all changed and I hope for the better. Yes Tony, I too have been working hard and have produced a lot of work while you were in Europe. Yes, it will be interesting to see and hear what you will think of it.”

[8]AAA Schwartz reel D59, frame 0029. (1929, oil on canvas, current location unknown,) Chapman, p.64.

[9]Op. cit., Chapman, William S. Schwartz, A Study, 1930, p.66.

[10]Op. cit., Chapman, William S. Schwartz, A Study, 1930, pp.65-67. “A supernatural light from an otherworldly sky casts a strange glow over this ghastly scene painted in earthy reds, pallid yellows, lurid silvers, and restive blues.”

[11]Op. cit., Thompson, Chicago Sunday Tribune, 1949, Part 3, p.6N.

[12]Op. cit., Dreishpoon, The Paintings…, p.28.

[13]Op. cit., AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frames 0032-0033. These records exhibit photographs taken of Schwartz’ sculpture, Head of Mona, (1931, location unknown,) front and rear views, and one with Schwartz with his arm around the bust on a pedestal. This piece was done halfway between their meeting and marriage and after she had been introduced to his Los Angeles siblings in 1928, [reference photograph discussed earlier,] and, from his loving pose, was obviously not meant merely as a generic sculpture using her as a model. Op. cit., Dreishpoon, The Paintings…, p28. Autobiography depicts the artist and his future wife Mona Turner his studio. Schwartz met Mona about 1929; they were married in 1939. Mona was an essential part of Schwartz’s life and career. For the duration of their married life, until Schwartz’s death in 1977, she diligently took responsibility for all administrative aspects of his career, including appointments, accounts, clipping files, as well as modeling. This painting is illustrated on p.38 of this source.

[14]Op. cit., Thompson, Chicago Sunday Tribune, 1949, Part 3, p.6N, “They were married in 1939 at Briggsville, Wis., a village of fifty people, and one of the painter’s favorite spots for working.”

[15]“Lawn Ceremony Unites Chicago Couple at Briggsville,” Wisconsin State Register, Portage, Wisconsin, 8/25/1939, n. p., AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0615.

[16]Op. cit., Dreishpoon, The Paintings…, p.4. At this writing Bernard Dresner lives in Paris, France, and Phyllis Dresner Helford, formerly of Des Plaines, Illinois, is deceased. Her son, at this writing, is successful Hollywood producer Bruce Helford, who remained steadfastly unwilling to cooperate with any research nor share any of his files for such purposes.

[17]Op. cit., AAA Schwartz Reel D59, image 0756.

[18]Claire Conley, “Omahan’s Painting at Joslyn Recalls Determined Struggle,” Omaha Evening World-Herald, 5/24/1951. In this article the author indicated that, “His mother was the late Mrs. Taba [Tauba] Schwartz, also of Omaha.” We have no other reference or date for her death.

[19]Op. cit., Dreishpoon, The Paintings…, p.5.

[20]One can observe Old Country Bazaar, (1926, oil on canvas, 36 x 42 inches, current location unknown) exhibited in the 1926 Thirty-Ninth Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Brilliantly colored, almost reminiscent of stained glass, it portrays the backs of anonymous female figures, composed mostly of their multi-colored skirts, aprons, kerchiefs and shawls. The few men are composed of brown suits and hats, except for one forward-facing man in a white cape and tricorn hat, perhaps a nobleman. They are in a small village square buying and selling items. The background buildings appear to be tilted and crooked small houses. One would doubt a community so depicted could ever have been so colorful in reality, but Schwartz was always engrossed in his signature use of saturated color, no matter what the subject. This painting is reproduced in color on the cover of Dreishpoon, The Paintings, Drawings, and Lithographs of William S. Schwartz.

[21]After Working Hours, (1927, oil on canvas, 38 x 48 inches, current location unknown) is comprised of the same clothing-composed people of Old Country Bazaar, milling around in a park-like area on a bluff with other bluff tops visible upper left and right center. The opposite bluffs contain the same crooked slab houses of Old Country Bazaar. All the figures except three are like in appearance to the Bazaar people, The three more modern figures include a man dressed in white cap, slacks and shirt like a house painter and a woman, with short uncovered hair in a tunic and long skirt with a little girl at her side. Op. cit., Dreishpoon, The Paintings…, illustrated on p. 18.

[22]Daniel Catton Rich, essay for “William Samuel Schwartz Exhibition, 12/6-12/18/1943,” for Associated American Artists Galleries, New York, AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0631.

[23]For a number of years, during the late 1930’s into the 1940’s, Schwartz lived at 102 E. Hubbard in Chicago, in a two room apartment above Riccardo’s Restaurant. The main room contained Mona’s kitchen, his studio and their living area.

[24]Illustrated on the Internet web page of Robert Henry Adams Fine Art Gallery in Chicago, <http://www.artnet.com/GalHome/FineArtDetail.asp?FromLoc=GalHome&LotID=69284&PAGE=1&GID=&CID=&AID=3295&AILETTER=S&FROMPG=GLRY&GNAME=&WNAME=The+Green+Couch>.

[25]This is known because in photographs of William and Mona at home in 1944, AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frames 0195-0196, one can see the same slipcover and donkey planter on a table at the end of the couch-precisely as in the Green Couch.

[26]The painting is a framed [probably oil on canvas] work of a village, Midwestern in appearance, with a traditional white church with steeple at its center, backed by a cloudy sky.

[27]1928, 18¾ by 12¼  inches, edition of 25, current location(s) unknown, illustrated in Chapman, p.156.

[28]It is virtually impossible to be certain of the actual picture from the microfilm copy of the photograph found in the AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0025.

[29]Op. cit., Dreishpoon, The Paintings…, p.13. In 1928 Schwartz began to investigate lithography. Though he worked in this medium for only ten years, from 1928 to 1938, he produced a significant body of prints. Consistent with his careful record keeping, each print was given a chronological number and an impression number. From the records he kept during this period, we know that he executed a total of sixty lithographs, pulled in editions that varied from sixteen to seventy-three impressions. The range of his subjects and method of working varied. In some cases, a conté crayon drawing served as the preliminary study for a print. In other cases, a print was based on an earlier painting, as in Dwelling along the River and The Old Monastery Wall, which became Lithographs No. 10 and 42. By and large, however, lithography offered Schwartz the chance to extend his repertoire of subjects and to experiment with a new medium. Mastering, with subtlety, the tonal range and contrast inherent in the medium, he produced images remarkable for their elegant simplicity, draughtsmanship, and formal design. In his series of sensuous nudes, for example the female form is brought to the threshold of abstraction by a minimum of definition.

[30]Op. cit., Chapman, William S. Schwartz, A Study, 1930, p.143.

[31]Op. cit., Torrey, Omaha Sunday World Herald, 8/3/1930. Max says, “My brother...has a great big studio, full of lovely things. I’ve visited him several times. Young men are always there, taking lessons or having him help them with their pictures. They just worship him. He’s their idol. They pay him for teaching them, of course, but some of them make more money than he does!” [as commercial artists.]

[32]Op. cit., Torrey, Omaha Sunday World Herald, 8/3/1930, the subtitle to the article is, “William Schwartz acclaimed as artist who shows Real Possibilities of Cubism…” “William Schwartz, a Chicago painter of Russian Jewish extraction, is one of the most successful of American moderns. His work is modern not because of his cubistic tendencies but because he has grasped the spirit of experimentation.”

[33]Op. cit., Chapman, William S. Schwartz, A Study, 1930. Especially note the 1928 series of nudes, Lithographs numbers, 4, 6, 12, notably 13, 15, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27 and 29, in which the spare wedge-stroke of the crayon delineates the form, which is seen more in what the ink of the print confines than in the ink mark, very much an image formed by negative space.

[34]Op. cit., Torrey, Omaha Sunday World Herald, 8/3/1930. In response to a question about the probability of achieving great wealth through working as a commercial artist, Schwartz replied, “I’m an artist. My art is all I have; it’s all I want. I like this, I can do this, and I’ll not do anything else.”

[35]Op. cit., Lovatt, Evening Times-Globe, 7/24/1957, p.15.

[36]“Artist is Here; Modernist to Paint Mother’s Portrait,” Omaha Evening World Herald, 12/18/1930, n. p. AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0482. This author has seen no mention of this movie anywhere else.

[37]Op. cit., Dreishpoon, The Paintings…, p.8.

[38]University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Raymond Jonson archives of the Jonson Gallery of the Fine Arts Museum, initial “Cors Ardens” brochure. A brotherhood of artists, Cors Ardens, (the flaming Heart) was an international art organization, “which recognizes art as the universal medium of expression and evidence of life,” a concrete move to bring together, at least in spirit, sympathetic, isolated individuals. Exhibitions were to be held without juries, prizes, or sales.

[39]The Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists, (“No-Jury Means Freedom,”) was an alternative art exhibition organization founded in 1922. In 1931 and 1957, Schwartz did exhibit with this organization.

[40]Op. cit., Torrey, Omaha Sunday World Herald, 8/3/1930.

[41]Op. cit., Lovatt, Evening Times-Globe, 7/24/1957, p.15.

[42]Op. cit., Morning World Herald, 9/7/1954, p.20.

[43]“Schwartz Rare Soul...Pleased With Life,” Dallas Morning News, 11/20/1949, n. p., AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0726.

[44]Anna L. Werbe Galleries, 19458 Livernois Ave., Detroit 21, MI., brochure for Schwartz Exhibition opening, 12/6/1959. Quote from Frank Holland, article unnamed, Chicago Sun-Times, 10/17/1954, n. p., AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0756.

[45] C. J. Bulliet, “Artless Comments on the Seven Arts,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 10/21/1930.

[46]Op. cit., Chapman, William S. Schwartz, A Study, 1930, pp.42, 45.

[47]Curiously, throughout his career, one of the most ardent supporters of modern art, C. J. Bulliet of the Chicago Daily News, rarely mentioned Schwartz in reviews for almost two decades. Schwartz felt he and some others who failed to gain mention were unfairly grouped as part of a coterie of Art Institute favored artists. For a response to the slights see a letter to Bulliet by Schwartz, published in C. J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries: ‘Clique’ Clubs,” Chicago Daily News, 4/29/1939, Art and Music Section, p.25.

[48]The Emancipator won the Detroit Temple Beth El Sisterhood first prize in 1926. AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0004.

[49]“cutline of photograph of Mining,” New York Times, 716/1933, n.p., “a mural by William Schwartz, one of the group of Chicago artists who were chosen to cooperate with the architects in the decoration of the buildings of the fair.” The mural was in the General Exhibits Building, Pavilion #3, in a Century of Progress, Chicago, 1933, (28 x 40 feet, a wall/ceiling installation,) AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0536. See also, “cutline to photograph of Schwartz on a scaffold putting the final touches on the mural,” Chicagoan, July, 1933, n. p. “[it]...is decorative and dramatic, a typical Schwartz canvas enlarged to a wall over a stairway with the usual brilliant color and stylized forms so peculiar to Schwartz.” AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0056.

[50]Op. cit., Dreishpoon, The Paintings…, pp. 16-17.

[51]The AAA Schwartz Reel D58, frames 0181-0230 contain letters from the Associated American Artists dating from 5/23/1943 through 12/16/1949.

[52]The AAA Schwartz Reel D58, frame 0205, telegram of 11/11/1944 from Associated American Artists director, Reeves Lewenthal, that “[we] have agreed to $1800 price for your Hiram Walker painting.”

[53]The AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0679, a copy of the advertisement showing the painting and texted with an article, “Art of Whiskey-Making at Hiram Walker is Portrayed by Famous American Painters.” An inset of Schwartz at work calls him, “...one of the many artists with international reputations who are portraying the fine art of fine whiskey making.”

[54]The AAA Schwartz Reel D58, frame 0192, Associated American Artists letter of 2/4/1944 from Estelle Mandel.

 

Your assignment for them will be a single painting, preferably an outdoor one with a very violent sky, along the lines of the paintings of yours which we have here in the galleries.

 

[55]The AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0643. The copy of the advertisement has no mention of where it was published.

Also note, n. a., “ ‘Fine’ Art in Advertising,” American Artist, January, 1946, p. 30, which used Schwartz’ Niagara Alkali painting as an illustration for an article discussing the “...publication of the 24th Annual of Advertising Art, with its 350 reproductions of jury-selected art work,” The AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0683.

[56]The AAA Schwartz Reel D58, frame 0195, Associated American Artists letter of 5/5/1944 from Estelle Mandel.

[57]The AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frames 0646-0655, The Lamp, December, 1944, Vol. 26, No. 6—Schwartz’ painting, Making Grease at Pittsburgh, was the cover art. The commissioned painting series, “Watercolors of the Pittsburgh Grease Works,” was reproduced on pp. 13-16.

[58]The AAA Schwartz Reel D58, frame 0197, Associated American Artists letter of 5/25/1944 from Estelle Mandel.

[59]Op. cit., Mandel letter of 5/5/1944.

[60]The AAA Schwartz Reel D58, frame 0213, Associated American Artists consignment receipt with date of sale listed. The receipt was from the New York branch, but the painting had been shipped to Chicago in February, 1945, according to a postcard of “Gallery advice,” record Reel D58, frame 0215.

[61]It appeared in the section on “American Painting Today,” in Volume A, published by the Spencer Press, Chicago. The AAA Schwartz Reel D58, frame 0227, Associated American Artists letter of 7/6/1948 from Estelle Mandel.

[62]“Ex-Omahan’s Art is on Display Here,” Omaha World-Herald, 10/17/1954, n. p., AAA Schwartz Reel D59, frame 0756: “A series of 25 lithographs and 10 watercolors by Chicago Artist William S. Schwartz, former Omahan, are being exhibited at Joslyn Art Museum. The exhibit will extend through November 14. The museum announced that six of the lithographs will be given to the museum’s permanent collection as a memorial to the artist’s brother, the late Max I. Schwartz. Donors are Mr. and Mrs. Sidney M. Schwartz, of Omaha, and Dr. and Mrs. Clarence Cohn, Winnetka, Ill.”

[63]The AAA Schwartz Reel D58, frames 0156, 0157, 0158, letters dating respectively, 4/18/1951, 3/9/1951 and 3/12/1951, also note-personal communication with this author of 5/15/2001, from Joslyn registrar, Penelope Smith. The Joslyn records show that: Ex-Trapper, oil on canvas, [36 x 30 inches,] no date [1937,] was an anonymous gift (donor described as a patron of Mr. Schwartz). Donation arranged through Howard G. Mayer and Dale O’Brien, Tribune Tower, Chicago. Mr. O’Brien described himself as a trustee of the Society of Contemporary Art of the Art Institute of Chicago and was its president in 1950. The patron, who wished to remain anonymous, purchased seven works by Mr. Schwartz to be placed in various American Institutions, this per a letter from Mr. O’Brien, 2/28/1951 to the Joslyn director.

[64]Eleanor Jewett, “Patron Donates Paintings to Seven Museums,” Chicago Tribune, 5/24/1951.

[65]The credo is undated, but he lived at this address from the late 1930’s into the 1940’s.