About the Artist

Jon Schueler was born in 1916 in Milwaukee WI. He served in WWII as a navigator of B17s after receiving a BA and MA from the University of Wisconsin. Having initially planned on becoming a writer, in 1948 he started taking courses at the California School of Fine Arts. New York became his base from 1951 with periods of living in the NW of Scotland where from 1970 he rented the former schoolhouse, Romasaig, just outside the fishing village of Mallaig. He exhibited extensively in both the US and the UK, except in the 1960s, when he taught as visiting artist at Yale, the Maryland Institute, the University of Illinois and elsewhere.    Since his death in 1992 his paintings and archive have been looked after by the Jon Schueler Estate, which became the Jon Schueler Foundation in 2024.

https://www.jonschueler.org/

Biography

1916 Born September 12, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1917 Death of his mother.

1920 Father remarries: Margaret Vogt. Two children, Robert (b.1922) and Paula (b.1926).

1934-40 Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. B.A. in Economics (1938). M.A. in English Literature (1940).

1940-41 Works for the New Haven Evening Register.

1941 Summer at the Breadloaf School of English as a scholarship student. Plans to be a writer.

1941 In September joins Air Corps of the United States Army. Basic training in the US. Marries Jane Elton, August 1942. (Divorced 1952.) Sent, November 1942, to Molesworth, England. B17 navigator, 303rd Bomber Group, 427th Squadron. Missions over France and Germany. Spring of 1943, Assistant Command Navigator, 8th Bomber Command. 1st Lieutenant. Hospitalized. Medical retirement 1944.

1944-47 Living in Los Angeles. Writes articles for magazines, radio announcing jobs and a scheme to set up a night club where Anita O’ Day would be the principal singer. Builds a house in Topanga Canyon. Daughters Jamie and Joya born 1944 and 1946.

1945 Schueler and his wife sign up for a portrait painting class with David Lax in Los Angeles.

1947-48 Moves, with the family, to San Francisco, California where he teaches English Literature at the University of San Francisco.

1949-51 Signs on full time at the California School of Fine Arts, SF. Particularly respects Clyfford Still, but also studies under Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Hassel Smith. Mark Rothko teaches there summer semester of 1949.

1951 In August, moves to New York. Clyfford Still introduces him to his friends; visits Rothko's studio; meets Newman, Kline, Reinhardt, etc.

1951-57 Lives in New York. Marries Joellen Hall Todd, Oct 1956. (Divorced March 10, 1959).

1957 In September sails for Britain. Sets up a studio in Mallaig, a small fishing village in the West Highlands of Scotland.

1958 Leaves Mallaig in March. Visits Italy before finding a studio in the Parisian suburb of Clamart and then Arcueil.

1959 Returns in January to his studio in New York.

1960-62 Teaches at Yale Summer School, Norfolk 1960 and 1961. Visiting artist at Yale University School of Art, New Haven 1960-62. Lives in Guilford, CT, fall of 1960 to early summer 1961.

1962 Marries Judy Dearing, Jan 27. (Divorced April 25)

1963-67 Visiting artist at the Maryland Institute.

1964 June 20, marries Mary Rogers. (Annulled May 5, 1965)

1965 Summer in Galileo, Majorca, writing.

1967 - Jan 1970 Based in Chester, CT.

1968-69 Head of Graduate and Undergraduate Painting and Sculpture at the University of Illinois, Urbana - Champaign.

1970-1975 Based entirely in Mallaig, his studio the former schoolhouse, renamed Romasaig.

1971 Films of Scotland produces a half hour documentary film on him.

1972 Spends three months in Paris, writing.

1975 Moves back to New York. Keeps the studio in Mallaig for the rest of his life. Most years spends three months there.

1976 July 29, marries Magda Salvesen.

1981 The Talbot Rice Art Centre, University of Edinburgh becomes his studio and exhibition space for 6 weeks: long, horizontal paintings.

1992 August 5, dies in New York.

1999 The publication of The Sound of Sleat: A Painter’s Life by Jon Schueler. Picador USA.

2023 Republication of The Sound of Sleat: A Painter's Life by Jon Schueler. Jon Schueler Foundation