Celebrating Richard Schmid

 

This blog has been posting on  Richard Schmid   ever since it began 20 years ago.  Here’s a Demo portrait that he made of Clayton in 2007. (It’s been loaned to this show). Here’s the Richard Schmid and his Influence show of 2009.  Here’s the Weekend with the Masters where Schmid, Gerhartz, Burdick and others were invited by American Artist Magazine  to demo at a resort in Laguna Beach. Here’s the Influence of Richard Schmid\on a former student from Indiana who mounted her show here in 2025. Here is a review of the  Richard Schmid Legacy Show of 2018 while  a more detailed presentation is shown here

This latest iteration  has a lot more Schmid accompanied by a more limited collection of works by the usual suspects.  There are  50 Schmid’s, mostly quick portraits, that makes for a fine contrast with the Willem DeKooning Drawing exhibition that just closed at the Art Institute of Chicago. Beyond the contours of his  carefully modeled faces, Schmid is something of an Abstract Expressionist.  He loves the freedom of painting without representation - and creating the feeling of a fresh, fleeting moment.

Willem DeKooning

But, of course, Schmid had other fish to fry. DeKooning depicted people with an adolescent boys naughty irreverence.  Schmid shared the more positive aspects of character that actually make our human world liveable: intellect, gentleness, idealism, strength,  compassion, etc.

So then he might also be compared with some old masters, as in the example shown below.

El Greco, portrait of 

Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino, 1609

Very few historic portraits are as personal and intense as the above.  Similar to Schmid’s  subjects,  Fray Hortensio was a personal friend of the artist who was also a creative person - a firey preacher and poet.

This piece traveled to Chicago in 2020 and it drove me as crazy as the man depicted. His personality filled the room - and it’s the twisting dynamic of the entire painting that makes that happen. 

Schmid’s brushstrokes carry the personality of his admirable and/or beloved subjects out onto the surrounding canvas, but that’s as far as it goes. These sketchy pieces are clever, virtuosic, and   charming. And so far as I can tell, they accurately express not just how these people look, but also what they are about. Compared with El Greco’s piece, they feel insubstantial, but so does our modern world compared with that great age of faith - (though I’m quite glad that religious authority is no longer a casus belli - except among opportunistic politicians and  radical true believers.)

Boldini. Portrait of Whistler.1897

Perhaps this more recent painting from a more secular age is a better example.  Once again, the artist is portraying a very creative friend. It came to Chicago in the Sargent- Guilded Age show at the Art Institute in 2018. The entire canvas produces a striking effect, as does the minutiae of brush strokes.  It feels spontaneous- but not slap dash. And though it presents a man of liveliness, wit, and sophistication - a darker, more complex, aggressive, egocentric  side is there as well.

 If Schmid ever took his portraits this far, they've yet to come to our gallery. Mostly he was content with leaving a quick, positive impression.  A few more developed paintings , depicting Nancy, can be found online:

Hopefully RichardSchmid.com will eventually present a more complete catalog raisonne.

The Poet

An intense young Rose

It somehow feels right that Grace Lai has been triangulated. She loved to sketch high rise  building projects under construction.

If only this piece were in our permanent collection.

Way more serious than all the others.

A portrait of the beloved.

Really captures the joy of flowing water - and our living planet.

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Schmid was articulate and passionate in his teaching - as well as a prolific writer.

He taught specific techniques some of  which his former students, especially Nancy, carry on.

He also advocated painting what you saw and envisioning the final piece at the very beginning of the process - which I think works better on small alla  prima landscapes and florals.

But otherwise the canvas usually depicts a narrative more important  than itself.

Graphic  power is weak and color is nothing more than accurate or appropriate. In defiance of a mainstream artworld that rejected it, that’s  where naturalistic figurative art went in the postwar era - and you can see it in many organizations like the Oil Painters of America, the National Sculpture  Society, the Portrait Painters of America, etc. - as well as among the former students shown in the adjacent gallery.

If a painting has a recognizable narrative, it’s rare for visuality to be as compelling - but that’s what I really want to see - and a visually centered aesthetic appears to be the foundation of the encyclopedic art museums that were established over a hundred years ago.  

 Schmid strongly denied he was an illustrator.  That’s what I would call it - but that’s hardly a bad thing if pleasing the most people is important (Thomas Kinkaide) or achieving iconic status in art museums (Andy Warhol).  

Nancy Guzik

This was the piece I liked most in the small gallery hung with works of former students. A real delight that was way underpriced. Congratulations to whoever bought it. 

Nancy Guzik 

This piece looks less exciting. As with Schmid, a plethora of charming detail has been organized in a less than charming way.

Clayton Beck

I usually like the female nudes these artists paint, but this was the only one in  this year’s show,  and Clayton also showed it in 2018.  Apparently he doesn’t make these much any more. 

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So many of the other pieces in this room felt morbid to me. The dying old man painted by Rose; the ghostly young women by Sue and Daniel, the front and center staring faces by Scott. 

Scott Burdick 

Scott Burdick

Scott Burdick

Strange and spooky. A very strong presence.

Somewhere in  between a religious icon and a concert poster from the sixties. Scott has traveled a long way from the upbeat naturalism of Schmid.

Dan Gerhartz

Dan Gerhartz

Both of these young women feel like ghosts

Romel de la Torre

What could be more cheerful than an open air market, but this one feels dark and claustrophobic.

Rose Frantzen, study for Last Light

Last Light,  Portrait Society of America , Grand Prize  2026

Weird - but also as ordinary as apple pie. Doesn’t everybody eventually see their last light?

Rose has also traveled a long way from her mentor.

Rose Frantzen, “The impossibility of feeling worthy in a universe of infinite beauty”

Might make more sense to me if it felt more beautiful than strange and disturbing.

(But then, I feel the same way about the graphics of William Blake,

and the paintings by her fellow Midwesterner, Thomas Hart Benton)

Reminds me of that mile long , epic visionary painting by Raqib Shaw now at the Art Institute. So meticulously rendered, and so unpleasant. 

Susan Lyon

Sue brought two charcoal drawings to the show, but I could not photograph them through the reflections on the glass.  So I pulled this one off her website.  All three feel sepulchral.  The above could be etched on a tombstone.

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This show follows hard upon the "Emerging Artists" show in September. Hopefully we will see many more ambitiously curated shows in the future. Stuart is talking about a national small picture show, and I hope it will happen.