Artist and writer had annual art award named after him
July 2, 1924 - May 29, 2019
A well-known artist and critic, Harry M. Schwalb was as refined with a pen as he was with a brush.
“He was absolutely brilliant and knowledgeable,” said Fran Gialamas, an artist from Fox Chapel and longtime friend of Mr. Schwalb.
He was a doyen of the Pittsburgh art scene for decades and was even the namesake for an annual art award given by Pittsburgh Magazine.
“He lived for art — he was a big believer in supporting new artists, and he influenced so many young artists,” said his son, Nashville lawyer Adam Dread.
Mr. Schwalb, 94, died of congestive heart failure May 29 at his apartment in Schenley Gardens, Oakland.
The son of Jewish immigrants from the Czech Republic, Mr. Schwalb grew up on a chicken farm in Indiana Township.
“[The barn] was five stories tall, and they had 15,000 chickens at a time,” Mr. Dread said. “I think it was the only barn in Pittsburgh with an elevator.”
Even from a young age, Mr. Schwalb’s talents in art and writing were evident.
In second grade, he wrote stories for a class newspaper, and he was featured in a 1938 newspaper article as a 14-year-old editor and illustrator of his English class’s newspaper.
When he was a senior at Schenley High School in 1940, he was an editor-inchief of his high school paper and was named a finalist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette award for school reporter of the year.
While he was in high school, Mr. Schwalb was also handpicked — along with other local luminaries such as Andy Warhol — to attend a free weekend art class at the Carnegie Museum of Art for gifted young artists.
Mr. Schwalb studied briefly at Penn State University before putting his education on hold in 1942 to enlist in the Army during World War II.
“A lot of my father’s family was killed in the Holocaust. It was a big deal to him and he lied about his age when he was 17 years old to get in,” said his son, who added that his father at first hoped to join the cavalry because he could ride horses.
Instead, he served as a private in the infantry and saw combat throughout Europe.
After his military service, Mr. Schwalb earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English from the University of Pittsburgh in 1947 and 1949, respectively.
As a teaching assistant at Pitt, he met undergraduate Myrna Hackney, nee Kline, and the two married in December 1958. They divorced but later remarried for several years.
Beginning in 1968, Mr. Schwalb lived with his partner Jay Dantry, owner of Jay’s Bookstall in Oakland, until Mr. Dantry’s death in 2016.
“My life with Jay was very rich. We had a totally creative life,” Mr. Schwalb was quoted as saying in Mr. Dantry’s obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Mr. Schwalb remained the best of friends with his former wife throughout their lives, his son said, until her death last year.
“He and Jay would go to lunch every day at her house. They were all very close,” Mr. Dread said.
From 1951 to 1993, Mr. Schwalb worked as creative director at Fisher Scientific, serving as spokesman, technical writer and as the editor of the company’s Laboratory Magazine.
Although an office job may seem to be at odds with his artistic personality, the 9-to-5 position suited his father fine, Mr. Dread said.
“I think he actually enjoyed it because he was able to incorporate his art and writing talent into the job,” he said.
But his office job never kept Mr. Schwalb from continuing to pursue art, and he held innumerable one-man shows throughout Pittsburgh and New York for more than 50 years.
He was known mainly for painting and drawing, and his favorite medium was ink on rice paper or pencil sketches.
Mr. Schwalb’s drawings were about art as social commentary at times, such as the “Chairman of the Board,” his drawing of a highboy — a tall chest of drawers with legs — so named because “I thought it looked like the usual chairman of the board — big, important, glossy, antique,” he said in a 1964 review of an exhibit in The Pittsburgh Press.
“His details were amazing,” Mr. Dread said. “And, he never priced his stuff too high. He wanted people to be able to afford it and enjoy it. For him, art wasn’t about the money.”
Mr. Schwalb was perhaps known best for his skill as an art critic, including from 1988 to 2011 at ARTnews magazine in New York City, and from 1977 to 1995 for Pittsburgh Magazine, which in 1996 established an annual prize in Mr. Schwalb’s honor.
The Harry Schwalb Excellence in the Arts Award — known popularly as “the Harry’s” — was an overwhelming honor for him, loved ones said.
“Originally, they were little crystal statues of my father,” Mr. Dread recalled. “He was thrilled.”
Witty but never acerbic, Mr. Schwalb was always kind in his reviews, even when he was critical.
“He never really gave a bad review,” Ms. Gialamas said. “Mostly, he celebrated what he saw.”
Mr. Schwalb also had a talent for promoting the arts while reviewing them at the same time, friends said.
“Harry was always so supportive of artists, and his writing reflected that,” said artist and friend Michael Morrill, an associate professor of studio art at Pitt. “He was a very strong force for the visual arts, and he was a great writer with a great sense of humor.”
“Even if one had no interest in art, his writing and wit would entice the reader into the gallery, the museum, the studio, into the art world, which he knew so well — unwittingly,” Ms. Gialamas said. “The reader gained unexpected insights.”
His father — who shunned computers and smartphones in favor of an old-fashioned typewriter and handwritten letters — will be remembered for his one-of-a-kind, irrepressible personality, his son said.
“I’ll miss his wit and sense of humor,” he said. “There will never be another one like him.”
Mr. Schwalb asked those who wished to remember him to purchase and enjoy a piece of art from a new artist.
A celebration of his life is being planned.