Biography

Robert Schwartz transports us to a dreamlike world where the line separating fact and fiction is often difficult to discern. His meticulously crafted oil and gouache paintings invite us to participate in an intriguing narrative but ultimately refuse to divulge the full story. Reminiscent of Renaissance painting, illuminated manuscripts, and the visionary art of Hieronymus Bosch and Balthus, Schwartz addresses the anxieties of contemporary life through his steadfast exploration of human interaction with nature and society.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1947, Schwartz enjoyed a nurturing and supportive childhood. He delighted in creative projects like building miniature block cities with his siblings and furnishing them with clay furniture modeled to scale. After graduating from high school, where he excelled in all areas of art, Schwartz enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago and earned his B.F.A. in 1970. There he adopted a flat, reductive style that won him favor with the Hairy Who—a Chicago art group that found inspiration in “paracultural pictorial sources such as comic books … and outsider art”1 Although he was invited to join a splinter faction of the group, Schwartz declined, choosing instead to move to the Bay Area, a thriving hub of counterculture. Schwartz did not embrace the artistic culture of San Francisco, however. Preferring to forge his own path rather than follow that of his contemporaries, the artist developed a fastidiously detailed style. He commented, “I invent a world to reveal certain truths about being human. My subjects are familiar as either common subjects for painting or because they represent things one can easily imagine from experience.”2 But while his subjects are easily identifiable and his renderings are remarkably accessible, his work retains a fantastic, dreamlike quality, which often delves into the murky depths of human experience.

His jewel-like paintings, which rarely exceed eight inches in size, reveal his fascination with the complicated stories of everyday individuals. As Susan Landauer notes, “the strength of Schwartz’s art is psychological. His primary subject is an unflinching examination of the contemporary psyche, exploring our deepest, and sometimes darkest, fears and desires.”3 Like dramatic stage productions, his paintings often isolate a climactic moment of human experience in which the character appears lost in a psychological narrative that has no clear beginning or end. In The Shapeless Street (1997), the drama takes the form of an eerie nightmare, truncated at the moment of highest intensity. Painted on an intimate scale, we find a lone individual slumped against a tree in the midst of a crumbling cityscape—buildings collapse around him, towers lean unsteadily to one side, and shards of wall are strewn about. The devastation appears to be the result of the thick, black floodwater that courses through the unlucky town. Although we are invited to view the aftermath of this terrible catastrophe, we are left to wonder about the events preceding it, for Schwartz provides us with few conclusive details.

In In the New Year (1996) the artist presents yet another drama of suspended action, but this time, rather than dwelling on melancholy aspects, he concentrates on the absurdity of the event. Here, a desolate urban landscape is populated by rundown buildings and littered grounds. One isolated structure stands out in this strange scene—a gargantuan pile of rubbish spilling out from the second-story window. At the base of the garbage heap stand three nicely dressed individuals who are hopelessly trying to plant fresh flowers in the midst of an urban apocalypse. They cling to an absurd dream just as people from around the world commit to high-minded resolutions at the start of a new year.4

In paintings like The Shapeless Street and In the New Year, Schwartz indulges us in the devastation and absurd dreams of others, but he seems to do so with a purpose. Seduced by his delicate renderings and jewel-toned palette, we are invited to participate in a seemingly amicable episode; but as the drama unfolds, we are soon confronted with shadows of our selves, clinging to the same hopes, dreams, and desires as Schwartz’s emblematic characters. —L.W.

1. Barry Schwabsky, “The Burden of Poetry,” Dream Games: The Art of Robert Schwartz (San Jose: San Jose Museum of Art, 2004), 102.
2. Robert Schwartz, quoted in Susan Landauer, “The Allusive Robert Schwartz,” Dream Games, 19.
3. Ibid., 29.
4. Ibid., 74.

(SJMA Selections publication, 2004)

Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1947, Schwartz enjoyed a nurturing and supportive childhood. He delighted in creative projects like building miniature block cities with his siblings and furnishing them with clay furniture that was modeled to scale. After graduating from high school, where he excelled in all areas of art, Schwartz enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago and earned his B.F.A. in 1970. It was here that he adopted a flat, reductive style that won him favor with the Hairy Who – a Chicago art group which found inspiration in “paracultural pictorial sources such as comic books and outsider art” Although he was invited to join a splinter of the group, Schwartz declined, choosing instead to move to the Bay Area, a thriving hub of counterculture. Schwartz did not embrace the artistic culture of San Francisco, however. Preferring to forge his own path rather than follow that of his contemporaries, the artist developed a fastidiously detailed style. He commented, “I invent a world to reveal certain truths about being human. My subjects are familiar as either common subjects for painting or because they represent things one can easily imagine from experience.” But while his subjects are easily identifiable and his renderings are remarkably accessible, his work retains a fantastic, dream-like quality, which often delves into the murky depths of human experience. (SJMA Collections Committee, 2004)

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