Randall Schmit,
collage artist and abstract painter, began his education in 1973 at
Texas A&M with the study of architecture. The
curriculum there included numerous art-related classes and he quickly
gravitated in that direction. He received both his BFA and
MFA degrees there. During his second graduate year he spent
six months in New York studying under George McClancy at Empire State
College. He also apprenticed with Ray Parker and under his
tutelage, received an immense amount of information including his
knowledge of color and of leading first and second generation Abstract
Expressionists through Parker's association with many leading figures
of those movements. After graduation he remained in New York to
work with Parker. At this time he began a body of his
own work, and shortly after had gallery representation.
As a
student he was inspired by Gorky, Giacometti, Bacon and
Tintoretto. In 1981 he made a number of large paintings
that were ‘all over’, with hidden mythical imagery and high-key color
use.
In 1999 the artist relocated from Manhattan to
Hudson, New York, where his friend, the poet John Ashbery, has had a
home since the 70’s. In 2000 a selection of the artist’s
collages were shown at a gallery in Istanbul, where he also traveled to
lecture at the U.S. Embassy. The Byzantine art and architecture
there affected the imagery of his subsequent work: the compositions
influenced the internal scale-relations of the figures, while the
Oriental architecture enhanced the fantastic nature of the paintings.
He is the recipient of the 2011 Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation Individual Artist Grant.
Schmit
has been a guest critic at numerous universities including Bennington
College, Skidmore College, the University of New Orleans and the
Maryland Institute Graduate School of Fine Arts.
Schmit’s
paintings are included in several public collections, including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the
Frederick R. Weisman Collection, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and
the Birmingham Museum of Art.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Breidenbach, Tom, “Randall Schmit”, The Country and Abroad, December 2000, pp 29-30.
Connally, Siobhan, “Randall Schmit”, The Artful Mind, November 2000, pp32-33.
“Randall Schmit at Apel Galeri”, NYV [television coverage], Istanbul, TURKEY,
September 15, 2000.
üstün Behçet”, Artificial Corridor”, Istanbul City Guide, September 2000.
“Randall Schmit”, ART + DECOR, Vol.90, September 2000, p.228.
“Randall Schmit”, VIZYON, Vol.122 , September 2000, p.551.
“Randall Schmit at Apel Galeri”, HOME/ART, Vol. 59, September 2000, p.20.
“Artificial Corridor”, SKYLIFE, Vol. 206, September 2000, p.212.
Brill, Joseph A., “Hudson Artists Bring American Culture to the Middle of the World”, Register-Star, Sunday, September 3, 2000, Front Page & Living Today, pp 1-2.
Goldson, Elizabeth, Seeing Jazz: Artists and Writers on Jazz, Smithsonian Institution, Chronicle
Books, San Francisco, CA,1999, p. 79, 143 (illus., color)
Breidenbach, Tom, “Randall Schmit”, Frederick R. Weisman Collection, Los Angeles, CA,1998.
Myles, Eileen, “Randall Schmit at E.M.Donahue”, Art in America, Vol. 82, No 12, December,
1994, pp 104-105.
Yablonsky, Linda, “Randall Schmit”, ARTFORUM, Vol XXXIII, No 3, November 1994, p.88.
Heartney, Eleanor, “Randall Schmit at E.M.Donahue”, Art in America, December 1991,
pp 117-118.
Gillette, Frank, Randall Schmit: Warping the Eye’s Mind, (catalogue) E.M.Donahue Gallery,
New York, NY, 1991.
Zimmer, William, Collage: New Applications, (catalogue), Lehman College Art Gallery, New
York, NY, 1991, p 3.
“Randall Schmit”, The New Yorker, June 10, 1991, p.17.
Simms, Lower Stokes, Randall Schmit, (catalogue), E.M.Donahue Gallery, New York, NY 1990.
“Randall Schmit: Absent Hymn Before the Flood”, Mudfish 5: Contemporary Art and Poetry, Box Turtle Press, New York, NY 1990, p.44.
Nash, Jesse W., “Randall Schmit”, The New Orleans Art Review, Vol III (89-
90), November/December 1989, pp.28-29.
Bogart, Derek, “Gallery Scene: Magazine Street”, OFF BEAT, Vol2, No 2, December, 1989.
Green, Roger, “Randall Schmit”, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Arts & Entertainment Section, p.2.Sunday, November 12, 1989, p.F-17.
Rive, David, “Randall Schmit: New Abstractions”, The New Orleans Art Review, Vol VI, No4, May/June 1988, p.4.
Green, Roger, “Randall Schmit”, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Arts & Entertainment Section, Sunday, May 1, 1988, p.2.
Brenson, Michael, “Critic’s Choices”, The New York Times, Sunday, July 26, 1987.
Wallace, Kent, “Four Shows; Four Hits”, Artspeak, Vol VIII, No21, July 1, 1987.
Vetrocq, Marcia E., “Randall Schmit”, Art in America, No 1, January,
1987, p.145.
Behl, Catherine, “Schmit: A Sense of Change”, The New Orleans Art Review, Vol. 86-87, No 2, November/December 1986, pp 30-31.
Green, Roger, “Randall Schmit: Recent Paintings”, The Times-Picayune, New
Orleans, Arts & Entertainment Section, Sunday, November 2, 1986.
Glade, Luba, “Randall Schmit”, Gambit, New Orleans, LA, October 8, 1984.
Green, Roger, “Randall Schmit”, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Arts & Entertainmen Section, Sunday, April 8, 1984, Section 3, p.8.
Glade, Luba, “Randall Schmit”, Gambit, New Orleans, LA, April 14, 1984, p.27.
Harlan, Calvin, “Peach Blossoms, Mexicans, et al”, The New Orleans Art Review, Vol III, No.23, March/April/May 1984.
“Schmit Exhibition”, Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, March 28, 1984.
“Randall Schmit”, Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate, Baton Rouge, LA, February 14,
1984.
The following paragraph was written for use by the Frederick R.
Weisman Art Foundation in the publication of its first comprehensive
catalogue of the art collection.
ON RANDALL SCHMIT’S PAINTINGS
An
early painting by Randall Schmit is like a clear snapshot of a colorful
blizzard of energy and forms. The works are muscular and abstract
and create the impression of mysterious occurrences at multiple depths,
of spaces being revealed within space. There’s a suggestion that
the process is endless and random, that each new level is as flush with
interesting possibilities as another?an infinite universe bounded only
by the choices we make among these levels. Tempering the work is
a sense of the fun of having articulated precisely these figures during
his exploration. Vibrant and purposeful, these shapes can suggest
architecture, classical sculpture or parts of bodies, none of which
fully emerge as we might expect from the action they are enmeshed
in. It is as though the passages are occupied with each other at
some more essential and secretive level than we are usually privy to,
in an intricate relationship which feels at once material and
spiritual. More recent works show the evolution of the abstract
passages of earlier canvasses into more realistic (if dreamlike)
scenes: haunted arenas, crumbling ruins amid which crouch a monkey,
human figures in caves, eerie stretches of meadow, clouded skies and
grassy plains and, most prominently, stills from old movies.
While encroached upon by intricate squiggles and menacing squibs, these
frames seem more stark for Schmit’s faithful depictions than they
possibly could have been in the context of the films from which they
are derived. They are American, violent and archetypal, their
characters’ gestures and poses simultaneously urgent, comic, violent
and sincere?and restrained, if at all, only in the final
instance. While we remain unaware of the particulars of the
drama, the stakes seem certain, and high. Schmit continues to
work brilliantly at this keen edge.
- Thomas Breidenbach, August, 1997
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