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Elmer
"Skinny" Schooley
Works on Paper: lithography, woodcuts, aquatints and
pastels
SANTA FE, NM--While Elmer Wayne “Skinny” Schooley
(1916-2007) was best known for his large landscape
paintings, the artist also achieved distinction as a
printmaker creating imagery of northern New Mexico in
lithographs, woodcut, aquatints and pastels. On Friday,
April 24, 2009, the Meyer East Gallery will open an exhibition
featuring the largest collection of Schooley’s works on
paper with a reception from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, in the
225 complex on Santa Fe’s famed Canyon Road.
Meyer East Gallery has represented Schooley since the
early eighties and continues to represent his estate. In this tradition the
gallery is excited to curate this exhibition which will
feature the largest collection ever compiled of his
paper works including lithographs, woodcuts, aquatints
and pastels. These works offer a perspective of the
artist as a draftsman.
Garden Walk |
Las Vegas, New Mexico |
Montezuma Bridge
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The paper pieces in this exhibition were primarily done
in between the 1940s through the late 1960s while
Schooley was teaching at New Mexico Highlands University
in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Schooley retired in 1977 after
teaching fine art and print-making at Highlands.
During his thirty-year tenure at the school he was head of
the department of arts and established the university's
art library and its graphics department. Schooley made
prints for such artist as Kenneth Adams and Theodore van
Soelen, as well as his own works. The school’s print shop
was established by Schooley and he would spend countless
hours there creating works. For decades he printed
lithographs on a press in his office at the university
between classes for extra money and artistic challenge.
He founded the lithography workshop at the university
and educated thousands of students in how to work in
this art form.
With little training in printmaking, a used fifty-dollar press
and grim determination, Schooley developed a lithography
program at Highlands long before the
Tamarind Institute moved to Albuquerque. The works he
developed reflected the times of their creation, often
focusing on the social issues that Schooley held close:
fighting racism, voting rights, and worker’s rights and
social equality.
In the
1930's Schooley began creating his paper works and
exhibited them in major shows throughout the country. He
participated in many shows including the Society of
Print Makers, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, the
Philadelphia Print Club Annual and won many Purchase
Awards from the Museum of New Mexico’s Annual Graphics
Show in the 1950s. Over the years, Elmer Schooley’s work
has garnered numerous awards and prizes, including the
Museum of New Mexico’s Biennials in 1970, ’72 and ’74; a
Ford Foundation purchase prize in 1962; a Hallmark
Purchase Award in 1964, and the New Mexico Governor’s
Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts in 1986.
His prints are in the permanent collections of the
Metropolitan Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum, the
Museums of New Mexico, the Philadelphia Print Club and
the Library of Congress.
“The greatest influence on my print work was an fellow
you probably have never heard of, Frederick O'Hara, who
was a New Mexico artist who was very active here from
the early 1940s to the mid 1960s. He was a première
printmaker. He taught me more, and he taught me through
example because he was real big on this business of
listening to your material, and I'm no sooner going to
impose myself into those big gestural lines and all this
kind of stuff that people do. Instead of that, he would
flow ink onto a stone and then see what kind of form
that suggested, and then put it down and print something
else on top. My wife, Gussie, was doing some woodcuts at
the time, and Frederick did a lot of colored woodcuts
before he got involved with colored lithography,
absolutely beautiful prints,” explains Schooley from his
diary.
“So this idea of serendipity, or whatever we should call
it, of listening to the material, of letting the
material suggest to you what the finished work should
look like, I really got this. I owe everything on this
to Fred O'Hara and to my willingness; more than
willingness, my ability, to follow his example,” Schooley noted.
Elmer W. "Skinny" Schooley spent fifty years creating works
on paper but spent the later part of his life painting
substantially large canvases. He surrounded himself with
the stuff of his densely patterned paintings, working
hand stretched linen canvases measuring approximately
seven
by eight feet, he enveloped the viewer, commanding an
unnerving emotional surrender and profound
introspection. No horizon line or human figure provide
an easy visual solution. Nothing was simple for
"Skinny." He painted his world of nature from inside the
tunnel looking out, demanding the viewer jump right in,
head first.
He was born in Lawrence, Kansas, the third of four sons
of Sparks S. and Nella Winey Schooley. His family lived
in Oklahoma during his childhood, moving to Colorado
during the great depression. After high school Skinny
enrolled in the University of Colorado where he majored
in art and worked his way through college as a truck
driver. In Boulder he fell in love with a fellow art
major, Gertrude "Gussie" Rogers, and spent one summer as
a ranch hand working on her family's ranch near
Westcliffe, Colorado. They married in September 1941, just prior
to departing for the University of Iowa where they both
earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree.
Skinny enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942, went to
Officer Candidate School, and spent several years in the
South Pacific and later Japan. After the war they moved
to Silver City, New Mexico in January 1946, where Skinny taught
art at New Mexico Western College. In 1947 Skinny joined
the Art Department of New Mexico Highlands University,
Las Vegas, New Mexico. He convinced the University to get its
first lithography press, a medium he practiced for many
years in addition to wood blocks and etching. However,
he settled on oil painting as his favored medium and
rarely did any print-making in his later years. He
taught classes in all the above media in addition to
art history. He was head of the art department for many
years before retiring early in 1978 to devote himself
full time to painting. Both Gussie and Skinny were
predominantly landscape painters, for which they were
well known.
Skinny was an energetic man of many interests. He loved
classical music and played the cello, performing in the
Highlands Orchestra and enjoying duets with friends. He
was also active in the Sierra Club and the Audubon
Society. He was an ardent bird watcher, and always an
eager participant in the Audubon Christmas bird count.
He skied briefly in college, but took it up again in his
fifties with a passion, serving on the Ski Patrol at Sipapu,
a ski area near Tres Ritos.
For over 30 years Gussie and Skinny made their home in
the lovely Gallinas canyon near Montezuma, northwest of
Las Vegas, where they raised three sons: David, John,
and Ted. Gussie wanted to retire someplace with winters
warmer than at 6700 feet. Just prior to Skinny's
retirement, Gussie applied for and received, grants for
them in the Roswell Artist-in-Residence program. Skinny
was reluctant to leave his beloved home and studio
nestled in the pines at Montezuma. However, after the
one year program, they bought a house on Berrendo Road
near the Roswell artists' compound to continue enjoying
the active arts community they had entered. Their
careers blossomed in retirement, devoting most of their
time to painting.
Elmer Schooley loved to paint and it shows. He created
large (80"hx90") landscape paintings covered with tens
of thousands of small dots. Layer upon layers of intense
radiant color each canvas stands the test of time,
placing over twenty painting in museum collections through
the world.
Even though Schooley uses recognizable landscape
elements like a field of prairie grasses or a barren
grove of winter trees, each image glows shimmering light
and the physical texture of paint.
His painstaking work reflects a true love for the land, a passion for the land, and a passion for the
application of oil paint on a surface. The results of
his labor envelop the viewer with an energy verging on
the spiritual. Like actual landscapes, these paintings
change in front of the viewer’s eyes. As if affected by
cloud shadows or a moving sun, whole areas move from
cool to warm while viewer focus shifts around the
canvas. When standing completely still, the viewer is
surrounded by quiet luminescent transformation. Like a
slight but urgent breeze Schooley tricks his audience
into seeing motion where there is only the stillness of
his singular vision.
Despite their contemplative, eccentric and unique
ambiance, Schooley's pictures are firmly rooted in the
history of modern art. The application of small dabs of
color came straight from the late 19th-century
pointillists Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and Paul Signac
(1963-1935). Schooley also borrowed compositional
elements and painting techniques from the abstract
expressionists Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning.
The roots of Schooley’s overall patterns and
field-oriented visual effects can be traced back to the
Nabis Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) and Pierre Bonnard
(1867-1947).
The retrospective features a cross section of
lithographs, drawings and woodblock prints, pastels and
several larger paintings. Through May 8, 2009
Article and photos courtesy
www.Meyereastgallery.com
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