Jon Schueler About the Sky

September 9 - December 12, 1999 Activities & Experiments Catalog Chronology & Exhibitions Itinerary Response to the Second Grade Tours Weather Resources Works on Display Jon Schueler Site

Sweet Briar College will originate an exhibition of paintings by second-generation abstract expressionist painter Jon Schueler (1916-1992). The exhibition will open at Sweet Briar College in the fall of 1999, then travel on a national tour to 5 to 10 other host museums. An illustrated catalog will accompany the exhibition. Jon Schueler was an accomplished, but under-recognized painter whose chosen subject was atmospheric conditions including clouds, fog, mist, sky, wind, and the weather in general. The paintings are poetic and lyrical. The artist's color is subtle, but haunting. Schueler's life story was also very fascinating. As a young man, he served in the US Army Air Corps as a navigator. He then pursued a career in teaching English and creative writing, followed by his entry into art school and a very vital career as a painter. The caliber of Schueler's work, combined with the fact that he was under-recognized, led to the granting of partial support for the traveling exhibition by The Judith Rothschild Foundation, New York, NY. Through the generous support of the Virginia Commission for the Arts, we have created an associated inter-disciplinary art project for second-grade children which will relate closely to Schueler's multi-faceted life story and will use his paintings as a springboard for investigation into other disciplines. In particular, children will investigate the relationship between Schueler's interpretation of clouds and weather, and scientific descriptions of the same through the second grade program. We created several classroom units which will deal with weather studies, cloud identification, weather sayings, and will also allow the children to create their own weather art and writings. Through this program, we will link different aspects of Schueler's life (navigating, writing, art-making) to the second grade activities. Our funding will pay to bus all Amherst County and all Tye River School (Nelson County) second graders to Sweet Briar for a tour of the exhibition. The units about weather will be pre-visit; the follow-up art activity will be post-tour. This tour will meet Standards of Learning objectives in the Commonwealth of Virginia for Grade Two. Pre-program teacher workshops have been developed to take place on two different school afternoons and will be offered to all second grade teachers, the visual art teachers, and to Sweet Briar Art Gallery docents.