Jon Schueler

American, 1916 - 1992

BiographyJon Schueler (1916–1992), born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was part of the New York School. He received a BA and MA from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, then joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in the fall of 1941. In November, 1942, he was sent to Molesworth, England as a B-17 navigator, 303rd Bomber Group, 427th Squadron. He flew several missions over France and Germany and, in the spring of 1943, became an Assistant Command Navigator, 8th Bomber Command, 1st Lieutenant. He was one of only two men of the "Bad Check" crew to survive the war, was hospitalized from exhaustion and anxiety, before receiving a medical retirement in 1944.

Following WWII, he attended the California School of Fine Arts from 1948–1951, and was part of the abstract group centered around Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn, Hasel Smith and David Park. With the encouragement of Still, Schueler moved to New York in 1951.

He had solo exhibitions at the Stable Gallery (1954) and with Leo Castelli (1957), before he spent six months in the North West of Scotland. His work, initially informed by Abstract Expressionism, came to suggest forces of weather and changing skies. New York City was his home from 1959 until his death in 1992 at age 75. His years were punctuated by many visits to Mallaig, Scotland, where he acquired a studio overlooking the Sound of Sleat in 1970. He took part in many exhibitions in both the United States and the United Kingdom, including a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1975; and Jon Schueler: The Search at the University of Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Art Gallery in 1981. – information paraphrased from brochure, Lost Man Blues: Jon Schueler—Art and War, essay Marissa Roth, Jon Schueler Estate.

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