A Schueler-inspired early evening sky. Or to be accurate, the sunset looked very Schueler to me, if not my painting!

Jon Schueler was born in 1916 in Wisconsin, and was around at the time of the later school of American abstract expressionism, (though he never felt particularly part of that movement). He moved to Mallaig (the ferry town on the mainland near Eigg) in 1957 and set up his studio there for a year. He returned many times to Mallaig – his longest stay five years.

I dropped into the Heritage Centre in Mallaig, which shows a few of his works (nearly all his works were on large scale canvas) but feel it’s a shame more isn’t made of the fact that his life’s work centred around Mallaig. I wanted to buy a Schueler post-card, but no luck, they didn’t stock any. More reason to develop galleries and art centres in this beautiful area of the world

Schueler painted the stretch of sea and sky between Mallaig and Skye called The Sound of Sleat

Here’s a small selection of his paintings. Beautiful work, and an inspiration…

“When I speak of nature, I speak of the sky, because the sky has become all of nature to me. But it is most particularly the brooding, storm-ridden sky over the Sound of Sleat in which I find the living image of past dreams, dreams which had emerged from memory and the swirl of paint. Here I can see the drama of nature charged and compressed. Lands form, seas disappear, worlds fragment, colors merge or give birth to burning shapes, mountain snows show emerald green. Or, for a long moment, life stops still when the gales pause and the sky clears after long days of careening sound and horizontal rain or snow.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jon Schueler; 1916 – 1992