OCTOBER 2020

Small House Gallery is pleased to show miniature works by Susan Schneider. We’re just not sure which Susan Schneider it is we’re showing. (We do now! <——Update)

Very little is known about ‘our’ Susan Schneider at this time. We found her glossy, strongly textured abstract oil studies, painted on small wooden panels, in a charity shop in South London over 15 years ago, and we were instantly charmed and intrigued by them. The works are painted on what we deduce to be the remnants of cigar or wine boxes, but bear no brand markings or labels. The wood is consistent with that sort of packaging – it is not the balsa wood one finds in craft stores, for instance. They’re signed and numbered, but not dated. Internet searches for the artist so far have been unsuccessful. The signatures are in ball point pen; the numbers are in black permanent marker, perhaps by the artist, perhaps someone else. We have titled the paintings according to the catalogue numbers on the verso of each. We guesstimate that they were painted some time between the 70s and 90s, but they could easily be older or more recent.

We have no idea of the age of the artist at the time of painting or the range in years between the miniature works. We are left to fill in the gaps with our imaginations: a British woman in her late 50s/ early 60s, inspired by Anglo-European abstract paintings she’d seen in her youth in the 1940s through to her 20s in the 1970s?

The truth of her biography is anyone’s to conjecture at this point. Were these paintings made for an art class? Was she a student or the teacher? Are they numbered for a juried exhibition? A selling fair? Are they rejects or were they sold? Who donated them to charity? A person she gifted the paintings to, or someone who inherited them? The person who bought them? Or was it she herself?

Is she still alive now?

Is she reading this?

More will be added as, if and when we get further information about Ms Schneider, the person & the painter.

We have put the internet feelers out, so watch this space.

UPDATE – FOUND HER! Good ol’ internet. Can’t wait to share more in due course. Amazingly, our guesstimates were not far off at all! (28/10/2020)

Thank you for visiting Small House Gallery today. The physical gallery has just moved from a private residence to an art studio, and is currently undergoing maintenance and renovations, as we find ourselves in Tier 2 Covid restrictions here in London (UK).

The Susan Schneider show is taking place between electrical rewiring, structural reinforcement and sanding, and the repainting phase. It’s therefore looking a little more lived-in than usual. We think the slightly distressed look to the walls and floors actually complements Schneider’s abstract aesthetic.

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Read our December 2020 SUSAN SCHNEIDER UPDATE —->here<—–

Some of Susan’s oil paintings are available for sale >>>>here<<<<!