ROBERT SCHELLIN (1910 – 1985) USA

“Calligraphy” Floor Vase 1958

Hand thrown earthenware with a light and dark brown glaze with a stylized abstract calligraphic motif encircling the body

Marks: various marks and estate stamps Robert Schellin, Made in 1958, P88, C118 (paper labels)

For more information see: Schellin, A Retrospective (Milwaukee: School of Fine Arts, The University of Wisconsin, 1975); Who Was Who in American Art,  (Madison, Conn.: Sound View Press, 1985), p. 547.

H: 23 1/2″ x Dia: 7″

Price: $9,000

Robert Schellin’s life as an artist was consistent, productive, and based on firm philosophical foundations.  Regarding his own progress, he had always been aware, as a young art student and later as a mature artist, that deliberately narrowing the focus of his interests to assure a more constant public notice would run the risk of his becoming highly expert, but sterile in expression.  From the beginning of art student days Schellin moved from very satisfying periods of drawing and painting to work in three-dimensional
Media, frequently in the medium of ceramics.

Schellin left the W.P.A. in 1937 to teach at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. After a year he moved to East Orange, New Jersey, supervising art in the public schools.  It was during this stay in the New York metropolitan area that he studied with Hans Hoffmann at his Eighth Street School and witnessed at first hand the changing art scene and the growing commercialism of the artists market.  Robert Schellin later returned back to Milwaukee rejoining the faculty of the University of Wisconsin (UWM). His works have been exhibited for many years in Wisconsin and national shows including the Wisconsin State Fair; the Art Institute of Chicago, 1944; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1946; and the Milwaukee Art Institute numerous times between 1939-1960.  He was included in the USIA European Traveling exhibition 1959-61.