AN AMERICAN PAINTER
Below - Stephen in one of his earliest studio’s, at Stanford University 1973
Stephen Schultz has been a professional artist for 60 years. He earned a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1971. He was then recruited to Stanford University on a teaching fellowship and received his MFA in 1974.
It was the “Bay Area Art Soup” that schooled Stephen Schultz as an artist. And what was the number one ingredient? The teachers and the connections that they shared. It was through close proximity to these teacher-artists and direct experience with their finished work that he found his way. These were Julius Hatofsky, Rod Titus, Jack Jefferson, and Bruce McGaw. They were Nathan Oliveira, Frank Lobdell, and Keith Boyle. It was a blend of remnants of what had come before with the Bay Area Figurative Movement and Abstract Expressionism. And while we can’t call Schultz a Bay Area Artist (He moved away for good in 1980), he marinated in that world through his education and experiences for 11 years.
And of his biggest outside influence Richard Diebenkorn, who to him seemed the father of them all, of which every single one of his teachers (from both schools) would often reference in their teachings, it was not only his figurative work, but his Ocean Park Paintings, with the intersecting geometric planes and the interplay between the resulting sections, that spoke to Stephen and translated into his own early abstracts and beyond.
It was within Diebenkorn’s work that Stephen first became inspired by the line. S.S. felt that the intersections held energetic potential to become other worlds. He first noticed this in R.D.’s use of interior spaces within his compositions. Yet it was the idea of atmosphere that Schultz saw in R.D.’s work that was most influential, and which he has since developed in his own way over the course of his career.
After Stanford, he worked his way up through the ranks from entry-level art instructor to tenured professor of Art at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he retired after 19 years.
Stephen spent several years living and working in Europe, including notable artist residencies. These residencies included the Rockefeller Foundation at Lake Como, Italy; the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France; and the Fulbright Foundation in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
His exhibition history includes venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as galleries nationwide, from Los Angeles to New York.
From 2006 to 2018, Stephen had regular exhibits in galleries in Paris, France; Hydra, Greece; Milan, Italy; and London, England. He still paints every day, spending the majority of his time in his studio, where he is currently working on a new body of work.
To learn about Stephen and his lifetime of work, follow his Instagram page @stephenschultzart. From his earliest beginnings to the present day, the Instagram project tells his vast story as a lifelong artist.
Stephen married artist Romey Stuckart in 1984. Early in their relationship, their focus was on world travel, leading them from Italy, France, and Spain to Egypt, Thailand, and India. They drifted along the waters of Lake Como, the Seine, the Mediterranean, the Nile, and the Indian Ocean. Kally Thurman, friend and art curator, writes, “Throughout their journeys, they painted in well-appointed to makeshift spaces, where they flourished, and the work spoke.”
The couple moved to Hope, Idaho, in 1987, where they immersed themselves in their individual creations, producing large bodies of work. For thirty-four years, he and Romey shared a life together in this beautiful area of the Northern United States, using it as their home base, starting in Hope and then moving to nearby Sandpoint, Idaho. Sadly, Stephen lost Romey to Cancer in 2020. He continues to live and work in the home and studio space that they built together.
ANOTHER WORLD
The work of STEPHEN SCHULTZ explores the individual's quest for a broader understanding of our existence.
"My paintings are an amalgam of autobiography and archetype of current events, history, and myth.”
Schultz builds a world with individual consciousness; as an artist, his reality is not only the normal progression of events and the foibles of character, but also the context of painting as an integral part of the definition of human endeavor.
The figures are not intended to be individual representations, but universal ones of every man and every woman.
In 1990, “The Paint People” emerged and have been present in Stephen’s work since. These beings seem otherworldly. They are consistent in appearance, with body shape and features—such as oversized hands and rounded faces. Often featuring a prominent nose, their facial expressions and direction of gaze are an important part of each final narrative.
Based in the here and now of physical reality, his surrealistic approach marries symbolism, metaphysics, and the human figure.
“My intent is that the narrative speak of a specific and personal moment, while at the same time addressing a more generalized concept of the human condition.” Stephen Schultz
“The paintings don't attempt to be a window on the real world, but describe a step into another surrealistic world, allowing the unconscious mind to express itself," according to Schultz.
