The Meyer East Gallery - Artist Biography

Elmer W. "Skinny" Schooley (1916-2007) painted tiny things in a big way - delicate branches, multitudes of leaves, bouquets of buds, flowing grasses and withering weeds. His close up perspective magnified these natureal elements, revealing entire worlds in a speck or dot of paint. Without the slightest reservation, Schooley brought such organic revelations to life on canvases too large to be lifted without a second set of hands.
He surrounded himself with the stuff of his densely patterned paintings. working hand stretched linen canvases measuring approximately 7 by 8 feet, he enveloped the viewer, commanding an unnerving emotional surrender and profound introspection. No horizon line or human figure provide an easy visual solution. Nothing was simple for "Skinny". He painted his world of nature from inside the tunnel looking out, demanding the viewer jump right in, headfirst.

He was born in Lawrence, Kansas, the third of four sons of Sparks S. and Nella Winey Schooley. His family lived in Oklahoma during his childhood, moving to Colorado during the great depression. After high school Skinny enrolled in the University of Colorado where he majored in art and worked his way through college as a truck driver. In Boulder he fell in love with a fellow art major, Gertrude "Gussie" Rogers, and spent one summer as a ranch hand working on her family's ranch near Westcliffe, CO. They married in Sept. 1941, just prior to departing for the University of Iowa where they both earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree.

Skinny enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942, went to Officer Candidate School, and spent several years in the South Pacific and later Japan. After the war they moved to Silver City, NM, in Jan. 1946, where Skinny taught art at New Mexico Western College. In 1947 Skinny joined the Art Department of New Mexico Highlands University, Las Vegas, NM. He convinced the University to get its first lithography press, a medium he practiced for many years in addition to wood blocks and etching. However, he settled on oil painting as his favored medium and rarely did any print making in his later years. He taught classes in all the above media, in addition to art history. He was head of the Art Department for many years before retiring early in 1978 to devote himself full time to painting. Both Gussie and Skinny were predominantly landscape painters, for which they were well known.

Skinny was an energetic man of many interests. He loved classical music and played the cello, performing in the Highlands Orchestra and enjoying duets with friends. He was also active in the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society. He was an ardent bird watcher, and always an eager participant in the Audubon Christmas bird count. He skied briefly in college, but took it up again in his 50's with a passion, serving on the Ski Patrol at Sipapu, a ski area near Tres Ritos.

For over 30 years Gussie and Skinny made their home in the lovely Gallinas canyon near Montezuma, northwest of Las Vegas, where they raised three sons, David, John, and Ted.
Gussie wanted to retire someplace with winters warmer than at 6700 feet. Just prior to Skinny's retirement, Gussie applied for, and received, grants for them in the Roswell Artist-in-Residence program. Skinny was reluctant to leave his beloved home and studio nestled in the pines at Montezuma. However, after the one year program, they bought a house on Berrendo Road near the Roswell artists' compound to continue enjoying the active arts community they had entered.

Their careers blossomed in retirement, devoting most of their time to painting. For many years he painted very large landscapes, 7 x 8 feet. He exhibited extensively, and his paintings are represented by the Meyer East Gallery in Santa Fe. Skinny's work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the Library of Congress, the Roswell Museum and Art Center, the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, the Albuquerque Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, among others, and numerous private collections.

Elmer Schooley loved to paint and it shows. He created large (80”hx90”) landscape paintings covered with tens of thousands of small dots. Layer upon layers of intense radiant color each canvas stands the test of time, placing over 20 painting in museum collections through the world.

Even though Schooley uses recognizable landscape elements like a field of prairie grasses or a barren grove of winter trees, each image glows shimmering light and the physical texture of paint.

His painstaking work reflects a true love for the land and a passion for the land and a passion for the application of oil paint on a surface. The results of his labor envelop the viewer with an energy verging on the spiritual. Like actual landscapes, these paintings change in front of the viewer’s eyes. As if affected by cloud shadows or a moving sun, whole areas move from cool to warm while viewer focus shifts around the canvas. When standing completely still, the viewer is surrounded by quiet luminescent transformation. Like a slight but urgent breeze Schooley tricks his audience into seeing motion where there is only the stillness of his singular vision.

Despite their contemplative, eccentric and unique ambiance, Schooley’s pictures are firmly rooted in the history of modern art. The application of small dabs of color came straight from the late 19th-century pointillists Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and Paul Signac (1963-1935).

Schooley also borrowed compositional elements and painting techniques from the abstract expressionists Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning. The roots of Schooley’s overall patterns and field-oriented visual effects can be traced back to the Nabis Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947).

Schooley’s 30-year career as a teacher at NM Highlands University allowed him to develop the first art library in the area as well as the first lithography workshop in the state. He also founded the university gallery.

The retrospective features a cross section of lithographs, drawings and woodblock prints, which offer a perspective of the artists as a draftsman. However, it will be his large works which will intrigue and enthrall the viewer.