Abstract landscapes go on show at Highland gallery
AN EXHIBITION of abstract Hebridean landscapes by the late US expressionist Jon Schueler, who moved to Mallaig in 1970 to paint Scotland’s turbulent skies, is going on display next month in a remote Highland gallery to mark the artist’s centenary.
Resipole Studios, a contemporary art gallery on the shores of Loch Sunart near Strontian, is hosting the series of artworks entitled Sea To Sky: Jon
Schueler. A spokeswoman said: ‘ This is the first time we have hosted an exhibition celebrating the life and work of an artist as revered and respected as the late, abstract- expressionist Jon Schueler. Resipole Studios is incredibly honoured.’
Schueler’s paintings can fetch up to $100,000 at auction. Sea to Sky presents a collection of 38 works central to Schueler’s time spent on the west coast, where he lived from 1970 to 1975. It is just one of a group of exhibitions in the US and in the UK to mark the centennial of his birth.
Jon Schueler, born in 1916 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was an acclaimed member of the New York School. He joined the US Army Air Force in winter 1941 and, as a navigator of B-17s stationed in Britain, flew missions over France and Germany. It was at this point he discovered his respect for the elements and sky.
Describing his fascination with his subject, Scheuler wrote in It Is magazine in 1960: ‘ When I speak of nature, I’m speaking of the sky. And when I think of the sky, I think of the Scottish sky over Mallaig. Time was there and motion was there. Lands forming, seas disappearing, words fragmenting, colours giving birth to burning shapes.’
The exhibition will run for six weeks from August 6 to September 18 and will feature a number of events celebrating Jon Schueler’s centennial.