Wolf Sookover was born on February 23, in 1895 or 1896 in Smorgon, a primarily Jewish town now in Belarus, then in the Russian Pale of Settlement, the area of the western Russian empire where Jews were allowed to live. His father was a butcher, and the boy showed enough early talent to earn a scholarship to the Vilnius Drawing School, with a rigorous four-year curriculum in drawing and draftsmanship. Vilna, about fifty miles northeast of Smorgon, was at that time, a vibrant center of Jewish culture. The school offered the only art program in Western Russia open to Jews. Schwartz studied there from 1908 to 1912. Upon graduation, he would have reasonably gone for further training to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. But the city of St. Petersburg was officially closed to Jews and his application was denied. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Smorgon and Vilna both experienced ongoing political upheavals that led to a steady and sizable stream of Jewish emigration to Western Europe and especially the United States. A Vilna classmate, Chaim Soutine, faced with the same dilemma in 1913, went to Paris. Schwartz chose America, following in the path of older siblings. A sister was living in New York City and a brother, Max had emigrated in 1909 and settled in Omaha, Nebraska.
Schwartz first stayed briefly in New York City. He found New York overwhelming. “The sheer physical bulk of New York engulfed me.” By March 1913, he joined his brother in Omaha where Max Swartz (his American name) was working in the garment trades. Max appears to have facilitated a series of jobs for his brother as the recent arrival struggled to master English and acclimate to America. With a safety net of family support, Schwartz continued to pursue his fixed intention of a career in art. He made a connection with John Laurie Wallace (1864–1953), Omaha’s premier portraitist. Wallace had trained with Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia and spent time in Chicago before finding his niche in Omaha. He welcomed Schwartz into his studio where he offered instruction in portraiture and life drawing. Wallace urged his talented pupil to go to Chicago and complete his education at the Art Institute. In 1916, after three years in Omaha, Schwartz left for Chicago. An initial foray proved disappointing. Unable to find work he went back to Omaha. He soon returned, however, and this time cobbled together enough income to support himself and gain admittance to the Art Institute. Schwartz’s principal teacher there was Karl Albert Buehr (1866–1952). Buehr had spent the years before World War I in Giverny with the colony of American impressionists gathered around Claude Monet. In 1914, he returned to Chicago to teach. Buehr was a prominent midwestern impressionist, painting in a style that held little attraction for Schwartz. But, as with Wallace in Omaha, Buehr respected his student’s talent and offered, in addition to instruction in technical skills, sufficient latitude for Schwartz to realize his own style. It may not have been incidental that Buehr himself was European-born and struggled financially as a young man, working at various jobs before he was able to gain a foothold at the esteemed Chicago school.
Two official documents shed some light into Schwartz’s personal situation as he adjusted to life in America. The first is a draft registration card, dated June 5, 1917, issued to Wolf Sookover. At the bottom, below the signature, in the same hand, is the phrase “alias William Schwartz.” With respect to his status in America, Sookover / Schwartz chose “alien,” a likely explanation for why he was not called up. He indicated his occupation or office as “Artist—Music Studio.” The second document is a copy of Schwartz’s naturalization record, dated December 23, 1925. By now he is “William (Wolf)” “Schwartz (Sookover),” arrived in the United States on December 21, 1912. Both documents state his birth year as 1895.
In his 1970 article, Schwartz listed a few of the jobs that paid his way in Omaha and Chicago. “During my student years I waited tables, ushered in the theatre, tried my hand at house painting (I was fired) and for one relatively prosperous interval worked in a glove factory.” Schwartz was generous in naming the teachers who mentored him: Wallace, Buehr, and Karl Stein. Dr. Stein was a highly regarded voice teacher who, with his wife, founded the Stein Musical Dramatic Conservatory centrally located in Chicago’s Auditorium Building. Sometime after he arrived in Chicago, Schwartz became a student of Stein:
For years I furthered my painting career by singing principal tenor roles on the vaudeville, radio, concert and operatic stage. Music has unquestionably influenced my approach to painting.... I studied singing with Karl Stein and Francisco Daddi. I sang in many roles and on many stages. Music ... was my second language [after painting].
Stein not only taught but appears to have organized concerts and booked tours for his circle of students. Schwartz was a tenor (as was Stein) who specialized in operatic roles. Music News, a Chicago publication, regularly reported on the activities of Stein and his students. In June of 1920, it noted with approval that “William S. Schwartz ... made a splendid looking Radames [the lead male role in Verdi’s Aida] and “showed himself the possessor of a voice of great beauty, power, and brilliance.” The article was accompanied by a photo of the singer, a strikingly handsome young man with a distinctive handlebar moustache that remained a fixture throughout his life. The moustache says something about Schwartz’s persona. He had a theatrical flair and did not shy from putting himself forward. He intended to be memorable. As Schwartz related in his autobiographical sketch, his musical activities not only funded his nascent art career but also supplied him with a wide and diverse group of friends as well as the chance to travel and experience America outside the confines of urban Chicago. Schwartz sang professionally until about 1929, the end of the decade during which he established himself as a young Chicago artist.
Beginning in 1918, William Schwartz showed work every year in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Annual Exhibitions until 1951. He also contributed, although less regularly, to annual exhibitions at The Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Strikingly, he exhibited only a few times in the early 1940s in New York. He remained firmly fixed as a Chicago-based Midwestern painter. Schwartz’s style of painting was considered radical for its time. His deeply saturated colors were considered harsh, discordant, and unrealistic, recalling the fauvists. His draftsmanship and composition reflected his awareness of European avant-garde styles, cubism and later surrealism. Beginning in 1924, he painted a series of abstract compositions which he did not begin to show until the mid-1930s. He apparently upset some viewer with his nudes. He resolutely followed his own inclination, which meant that he never fully subscribed to any style or trend, which deprived him of any easily assignable labels. His best artist friends in Chicago were Ivan Albright and his twin brother Malvin Marr Albright and Aaron Bohrod. Some of this changed in the 1930s when Schwartz painted regionalist scenes and worked on federal artists’ relief projects including two post office murals in Fairfield and Pittsfield, Illinois. Ultimately, he became a vocal proponent of the importance of supporting contemporary American artists. In 1939, he married Mona Turner, a divorced mother of two. Turner’s inherited family wealth eased financial concerns for the artist and the couple remained devoted until Schwartz’s death in 1977.
