Dream Games: The Art of Robert Schwartz

Dream Games: The Art of Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz is best known for his meticulously crafted oil paintings and gouaches, which are often no larger than eight inches square and feature enigmatic, dreamlike narratives. Schwartz painted his miniatures, rendered in jewel-like colors with astonishing detail using what art critic David Bonetti has described as a "lapidary’s skill."

Although Schwartz began his artistic career in Chicago, graduating from the Art Institute in 1970, his arrival in San Francisco the next year was critical in shaping his artistic output. Influenced by the eccentricity of the sixties and by the emerging gay community, his work became deeply psychological, as he began to examine the contemporary psyche with an unflinching eye for human weakness and vulnerability, and with a dark sense of humor uniquely his own. Schwartz always kept his distance from the contemporary art world, preferring to pursue a solitary vision. Although that choice protected his individuality, it also meant that his art received less recognition than it deserved. Schwartz died unexpectedly of heart failure in 2000.

Now, for the first time, over eighty of his paintings and gouaches have been gathered into a luxurious, full color monograph published by the San Jose Museum of Art and co-authored by SJMA Chief Curator Dr. Susan Landauer and international art critic Barry Schwabsky.