![Black and white photo of man sitting on back of chair painting on large canvas in studio](/sites/default/files/styles/background_tall_1500x800/public/william_schwedler_harry_anderson_photograph_copy.jpg?itok=fL9yxuH7)
William Schwedler: Against the Grain
William Schwedler in his studio, 1971. Photo: Harry Anderson
May 16-June 30, 2023
Opening Reception Friday, May 19
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
The Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of University of the Arts is pleased to present William Schwedler: Against the Grain, the first one person exhibit of the artist’s work in four decades. Against the Grain will present his paintings from early student work in Chicago through to the last year of his life in 1982. Schwedler was one of the earliest HIV victims in New York and he died on September 25, 1982, one day after the Centers for Disease Control named the associated syndrome AIDS for the first time.
Born in Chicago in 1942, Schwedler exhibited an exceptional talent in high school. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with classmates Jim Nutt, Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Cynthia Carlson, Karl Wirsum and others who became recognized as Chicago Imagists and graduated in 1964. The Imagists outsourced Chicago’s Monster Roster, garish pinball machine graphics, tattoos, ethnographic and vernacular information to create scatological representational Pop works as a contemporary kind of urban Surrealism. Schwedler’s paintings differed from the work of his Chicago friends by not using the human figure but rather representing inanimate objects such as chairs, curtains and tables in metaphysical situations while toning down the color. Heavily influenced by Chicago architecture, especially Mies van Der Rohe, he was mentored by A. James Speyer, who trained under the Bauhaus master before becoming a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. Schwedler’s early landscapes are rendered in a cool metaphysical style, much like de Chirico, whose work he would have seen in the AIC collection.
After graduating in 1964, Schwedler moved to New York to study at Pratt Institute, where he received his MFA in 1966. Although many of his midwestern friends became popular under the Imagist rubric, Schwedler’s move separated him from his roots and he was considered a New York artist by his Chicago counterparts. Conversely, his eastern reputation was considered by many too regional to be of critical consequence. This however did not affect his continued museum exhibitions or gallery sales.
The year after graduating from Pratt, Schwedler’s New York debut took place in a three person exhibit with Carlson and William T. Wiley at the prestigious Allan Frumkin Gallery. At the same time, he was teaching at Tyler School of Art and exhibiting locally at Tyler, Penn State, Moore College of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was represented in four Whitney exhibits and widely shown for two decades; at the ICA and AJ Wood Gallery in Philadelphia, University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island School of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Storm King Art Center, Kornblee Gallery, Andrew Crispo Gallery and Alessandra Gallery, Tibor De Nagy Gallery in New York, Henri and Osuna Galleries in Washington D.C., Phyllis Kind and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Gertrude Kasle Gallery in Michigan and Darthea Speyer Gallery in Paris.
As the 1960s progressed, Schwedler’s work became larger and wildly surreal, influenced by underground comics, H.C. Westermann, and his own idiosyncratic love of pottery collecting and close observation of ceramic glaze surfaces and coloration. Schwedler was a master colorist with subtle atmospheric graduations produced by hand or through the use of spray. He experimented with shaped canvases. An artist of his time, he was also inspired by MAD Magazine, the earthworks of Robert Smithson and the Nazca Lines in South America. These diverse interests pushed Schwedler to develop even more personal eccentric imagery which merged abstraction with the keen sense of surface decoration of the P & D painters of the late 1970s. His last major exhibition was curated by Alanna Heiss for the Clocktower on Leonard Street in lower Manhattan, a venue which later became affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art as P.S. 1.
Schwedler’s works are in many public and private collections including Yale University, Hirshhorn Museum, Ringling Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Des Moines Art Center, New Orleans Museum of Art, Massachusetts Institute of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Western Michigan University, Akron Art Institute, Oklahoma Art Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University and Rhode Island School of Art.
After a posthumous exhibit at Tibor de Nagy, his estate was distributed among friends and Schwedler’s work was never assembled again until this current exhibition. Schwedler was shown at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery in 2003 in The Other Tradition: Alternative Representations and Eccentric Abstraction in Philadelphia, and again in 2020 when he was represented by one canvas in the exhibition Invisible City. A forthcoming illustrated published volume will be the largest catalog on the artist and the first in four decades.
Our exhibitions are free and open to the public.
![installation image of two large colorful paintings in background and sculpture on pedestal in foreground](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/01_schwedler.jpg?itok=b31XgGOJ)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Large triangle shaped painting in foreground and two other paintings in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/02_schwedler.jpg?itok=QcgLeP8Z)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of three paintings hanging on two walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/03_schwedler.jpg?itok=bErdW3KX)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of back gallery with a painted wavy board, another geometric painting and a display case](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/04_schwedler.jpg?itok=tUoVuXNA)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of painting with colors and swirls on a wavy board](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/05_schwedler.jpg?itok=JP9evLp8)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of three paintings hung on adjoining walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/06_schwedler.jpg?itok=4xraIg8d)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image oof three different paintings hanging on adjoining walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/07_schwedler.jpg?itok=gQSkBFyW)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of three painting on left and part of a larger painting on right](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/08_schwedler.jpg?itok=jQ_sHir5)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of large triangle panting, pointed down, in foreground and another painting in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/09_schwedler.jpg?itok=MsizAMY7)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of multiple gallery walls displaying multiple large paintings](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/10_schwedler.jpg?itok=4jX_pKbP)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of large painting with rope imagery and repeating line work](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/11_schwedler.jpg?itok=aA2uPLjK)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation Image of gallery space with large paintings on all the walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/12_schwedler.jpg?itok=U1n45oiO)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Image of two large paintings displayed next to one another, with industrial and rope motifs](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/13_schwedler.jpg?itok=botClOEB)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image with large industrial image painting in foreground and smaller black and white works hanging in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/14_schwedler.jpg?itok=SBOCe9RE)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of corner of gallery displaying four large paintings](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/15_schwedler.jpg?itok=eBk8zb-J)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of painting in foreground and smaller painting in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/16_schwedler.jpg?itok=Re3h7QjD)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of two paintings (one which is 3-D) displayed on adjoining walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/17_schwedler.jpg?itok=7nUkvTrc)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of three paintings displayed across adjoining walls, two with a basket motif](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/18_schwedler.jpg?itok=CBc0OArN)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of two paintings handing next to one another, one large with brick and table image and the other with a basket and pyramid image](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/19_schwedler.jpg?itok=kIncl94P)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of two paintings with hanging basket motifs on adjoining walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/20_schwedler.jpg?itok=lf9mT0YY)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image with diamond shaped basket painting in foreground and triangle painting in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/21_schwedler.jpg?itok=_PH_kaof)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of gallery with various paintings displayed and slender sculpture on pedestal in center](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/22_schwedler.jpg?itok=tTrHA6sh)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Close-up image of slender sculpture on pedestal, with paintings in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/23_schwedler.jpg?itok=W8oSkBns)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image with sculpture on pedestal in foreground, aligned with painting in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/24_schwedler.jpg?itok=nMKecb4F)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Close-up view of slender sculpture on pedestal, gamed on either side by paintings in the background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/25_schwedler.jpg?itok=2r7uRVKV)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation view of gallery with three walls displaying four works](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/26_schwedler.jpg?itok=W2nAiS9R)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of large painting with blues on left wall and two black and white works on right wall](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/27_schwedler.jpg?itok=3EkiRTkC)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of black etching in foreground and rest of gallery in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/28_schwedler.jpg?itok=Y4WgT3xs)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of two smaller black and white works on a wall](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/29_schwedler.jpg?itok=m6N8Dmge)
Credit: Neighboring States
![Installation image of blue and green and white work in foreground and a window in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/30_schwedler.jpg?itok=wv7VS4ed)
Credit: Neighboring States
![installation image of two large colorful paintings in background and sculpture on pedestal in foreground](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/01_schwedler.jpg?itok=b31XgGOJ)
![Large triangle shaped painting in foreground and two other paintings in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/02_schwedler.jpg?itok=QcgLeP8Z)
![Installation image of three paintings hanging on two walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/03_schwedler.jpg?itok=bErdW3KX)
![Installation image of back gallery with a painted wavy board, another geometric painting and a display case](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/04_schwedler.jpg?itok=tUoVuXNA)
![Installation image of painting with colors and swirls on a wavy board](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/05_schwedler.jpg?itok=JP9evLp8)
![Installation image of three paintings hung on adjoining walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/06_schwedler.jpg?itok=4xraIg8d)
![Installation image oof three different paintings hanging on adjoining walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/07_schwedler.jpg?itok=gQSkBFyW)
![Installation image of three painting on left and part of a larger painting on right](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/08_schwedler.jpg?itok=jQ_sHir5)
![Installation image of large triangle panting, pointed down, in foreground and another painting in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/09_schwedler.jpg?itok=MsizAMY7)
![Installation image of multiple gallery walls displaying multiple large paintings](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/10_schwedler.jpg?itok=4jX_pKbP)
![Installation image of large painting with rope imagery and repeating line work](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/11_schwedler.jpg?itok=aA2uPLjK)
![Installation Image of gallery space with large paintings on all the walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/12_schwedler.jpg?itok=U1n45oiO)
![Image of two large paintings displayed next to one another, with industrial and rope motifs](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/13_schwedler.jpg?itok=botClOEB)
![Installation image with large industrial image painting in foreground and smaller black and white works hanging in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/14_schwedler.jpg?itok=SBOCe9RE)
![Installation image of corner of gallery displaying four large paintings](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/15_schwedler.jpg?itok=eBk8zb-J)
![Installation image of painting in foreground and smaller painting in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/16_schwedler.jpg?itok=Re3h7QjD)
![Installation image of two paintings (one which is 3-D) displayed on adjoining walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/17_schwedler.jpg?itok=7nUkvTrc)
![Installation image of three paintings displayed across adjoining walls, two with a basket motif](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/18_schwedler.jpg?itok=CBc0OArN)
![Installation image of two paintings handing next to one another, one large with brick and table image and the other with a basket and pyramid image](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/19_schwedler.jpg?itok=kIncl94P)
![Installation image of two paintings with hanging basket motifs on adjoining walls](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/20_schwedler.jpg?itok=lf9mT0YY)
![Installation image with diamond shaped basket painting in foreground and triangle painting in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/21_schwedler.jpg?itok=_PH_kaof)
![Installation image of gallery with various paintings displayed and slender sculpture on pedestal in center](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/22_schwedler.jpg?itok=tTrHA6sh)
![Close-up image of slender sculpture on pedestal, with paintings in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/23_schwedler.jpg?itok=W8oSkBns)
![Installation image with sculpture on pedestal in foreground, aligned with painting in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/24_schwedler.jpg?itok=nMKecb4F)
![Close-up view of slender sculpture on pedestal, gamed on either side by paintings in the background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/25_schwedler.jpg?itok=2r7uRVKV)
![Installation view of gallery with three walls displaying four works](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/26_schwedler.jpg?itok=W2nAiS9R)
![Installation image of large painting with blues on left wall and two black and white works on right wall](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/27_schwedler.jpg?itok=3EkiRTkC)
![Installation image of black etching in foreground and rest of gallery in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/28_schwedler.jpg?itok=Y4WgT3xs)
![Installation image of two smaller black and white works on a wall](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/29_schwedler.jpg?itok=m6N8Dmge)
![Installation image of blue and green and white work in foreground and a window in background](https://www.uarts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_item/public/2023-06/30_schwedler.jpg?itok=wv7VS4ed)