Ravens, n.d.
Elmer Schooley (American, 1916 - 2007)
lithograph, 16 1/2 x 21 in. (41.9 x 53.3 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. F. D. Good, 1969
2167.23G
Elmer "Skinny" Wayne Schooley was born in Lawrence, Kansas, the third of four sons. His family lived in Oklahoma during his childhood, moving to Colorado during the Great Depression. After high school Schooley enrolled in the University of Colorado, where he majored in art and worked his way through college as a truck driver. In 1941, he and his new wife departed for the University of Iowa where they both earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree. After WW II the Schooleys moved to Silver City, and in 1947 he joined the Art Department of New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, NM. During most of his thirty years at Highlands, he was head of the department as well as a moving force in the arts in northern New Mexico. Even though Schooley uses recognizable landscape elements like a field of prairie grasses or a barren grove of winter trees, each image glows with shimmering light and the physical texture of paint. His painstaking work reflects a true love for the land and a passion for the application of oil paint on a surface.