Nationality American Role Artist Name Suzanne Scheuer | Movement Social realism Known for New Deal-era murals Period Social realism | |
 | ||
Born February 11, 1898 San Jose, California Notable work Coit Tower mural Newsgathering Died December 20, 1984, Santa Cruz, California, United States Alma mater California College of the Arts, San Francisco Art Institute | ||
Suzanne Scheuer (born in San Jose, California on February 11, 1898 –died in Santa Cruz, California on December 20, 1984), was an American fine artist best known for her New Deal-era murals.
Contents
Biography
Suzanne Scheuer was born in San Jose, California on February 11, 1898. She moved to San Francisco, California in 1918.
Scheuer studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts as a fine arts major, and then later went back and got a teacher's credential. Around 10 years later she went back to school to study mural painting with Ray Boynton at California School of Fine Arts (now called the San Francisco Art Institute or SFAI).
Scheuer taught art for three years in Los Banos and Salinas public schools. After her time teaching she toured Europe extensively, where she gained an appreciation for murals.
Muralist
In 1933 she was chosen by Ralph Stackpole to be one of the Coit Tower muralists. Given a choice of California trade and commerce to portray, she selected the theme of industry, given a family connection to the petroleum industry. She lost out to John Langley Howard for industry and accepted the Coit Tower mural theme of newspapers. The mural was later named Newsgathering. She prepared by sketching the editorial, typesetting, and printing operations at the San Francisco Chronicle. Her assistant on the Coit Tower mural was noted artist Hebe Daum, who would later marry Ralph Stackpole.
In 1937 she received a commission from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Section of Fine Arts to paint the mural titled Incidents in California History in the Berkeley, CA post office. She also received commissions in 1938 to paint two other post office murals; Indians Moving in Caldwell, Texas and Buffalo Hunt in Eastland, Texas. The Caldwell mural was moved to the Burleson County Courthouse and mural studies for the Caldwell and Eastland murals are now part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
In 1940 she began teaching part-time at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California while continuing to paint and sculpt. Scheuer then moved to Santa Cruz, California where her extended family had settled. She designed and built six houses there, all of which are still (2013) standing, doing much of the physical and artistic work herself. At the same time she continued to paint and sculpt.
Scheuer died in Santa Cruz on December 20, 1984.