Painter, teacher and writer, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, America, son of a comfortably-off tyre manufacturer. He graduated in English at University of Wisconsin, 1938, gaining his master’s, 1940, but plans to be a writer were delayed when he joined the Air Corps of the American Army in 1941. He served as a navigator, but was discharged due to combat fatigue in 1944, then began writing. In 1945, when his first wife, Jane Elton, signed for portrait-painting classes, Schueler joined her; from 1947–51 he attended the California School of Fine Arts, taught by Clyfford Still, the abstract painter, who introduced Schueler to the work of J M W Turner. In 1951 Schueler moved to New York, where he encountered leading Abstract Expressionists and was signed up by the dealer Leo Castelli, who gave him a first show in 1957.
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Inspired by the 1945 film I Know Where I’m Going, and in search of a landscape, in 1957 Schueler left his second wife, Joellen (Jody) Hall, travelled to the west coast of Scotland and discovered Mallaig, where he was to establish a studio at The Old Schoolhouse, Romasaig. He worked prolifically, oils and watercolours drawing on the local environment but close to abstraction. Schueler returned to Scotland periodically from America over the years, exhibiting there, including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, in 1984. He taught at Yale School of Art, Maryland Institute and University of Illinois. Schueler was married, often tempestuously, five times, his last wife, the art historian Magda Salvesen, editing his extensive memoirs after his death following Parkinson’s Disease. They were published in 2000 as The Sound of Sleat and coincided with a show at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, with another in 2002. There was another exhibition at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, in 2003. Glasgow Art Gallery, University of Stirling and American collections hold his works.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
