Bryan College Station Eagle, TX
March 8 2007
Artist’s portraits illuminate the lives of ‘torchbearers’
By JIM BUTLER
Eagle Staff Writer
Portraitist Robert Schiffhauer illuminates the lives of subjects he
chooses because of the light they have brought to the world.
Schiffhauer, whose work will be part of three exhibitions in the
Brazos Valley, calls the people he has chosen to capture on canvas
"torchbearers."
"[They] light our way towards just societies that build up
institutions for racial equality, freedom of speech, human rights,
healthy environments and wise use of resources of land and sea," said
Schiffhauer, who turns 70 on Monday. "They go beyond nationalism to a
love of humanity. In return, many were tortured and executed."
On Thursday, four of Schiffhauer’s portraits will be part of Texas
A&M University’s College of Architecture biennial exhibition in the
J. Wayne Stark Galleries in the Memorial Student Center on the
campus. Raphael Lemkin from Poland and Germans Franz Werfel, Armand
Wegner and Johannes Lepsius risked their lives to expose government
atrocities in Eastern Europe during World War II.
Schiffhauer subtitled the collection: "They shed light while others
shed blood."
"Lemkin coined the word genocide in connection with the Turkish
slaughter of Armenians," Schiffhauer said. "My personal favorite is
Wegner. He was a medical corpsman in the German Army and went into
these refugee camps and spirited out photographs of proof of what had
happened."
Werfel wrote The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, a novel that detailed the
Armenian genocide. Johannes Lepsius was a missionary who worked with
religious organizations to rescue children and pleaded with Turkish
authorities to end the killing.
The exhibit will have 65 pieces from 20 artists. A reception will be
held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the Stark galleries. Admission is free.
The exhibit will run through May 6. Hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Tuesdays through Fridays and noon to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
On March 16, a retrospective of his work covering 40 years will be on
display at the Langford Building A in the College of Architecture.
In late May, a collection of Schiffhauer’s portraits is planned for
the Brazos Valley African American Museum, 400 E. 20th St. in Bryan.
Subjects of those portraits include Martin Luther King, John
Coltrane, Barbara Jordan, Louis Armstrong and W.E.B. DuBois. His
portraits of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Charles Gordone, who
taught theater at Texas A&M, were in one of the first exhibits in the
new museum.
Schiffhauer, an associate professor of architecture, pointed to
several influences that directed him to a career in art and education
and an attraction to the likes of King and Wegner.
"Discrimination has bothered me since childhood. I was discriminated
against as a German-American. Kids called me names and teased me."
Schiffhauer’s father, a first-generation German-American, worked in a
tool and die factory in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. "My family had no tradition
of higher education. Work in a factory was better than in a coal
mine."
With encouragement from a neighborhood art teacher, Schiffhauer
started drawing as a teenager.
"I think I was attracted to beauty because the town was so ugly,
banks of coal dust, slag heaps, factory buildings. My parents
couldn’t understand my wanting to go to art school. They said, ‘How
are you going to make a living?’"
Schiffhauer applied to several schools and received a full
scholarship to Cooper Union Art School in New York, considered one of
the best in the country. He earned graduate degrees from Yale
University and taught at the University of Houston before coming to
Texas A&M.
After experiments with abstract expressionism and minimalism,
Schiffhauer settled on portraits as his main interest.
"I got a lot from Vincent Van Gogh. I loved his self-portraits, so
revealing. The artist makes himself vulnerable, bears his soul."
Four years ago, Schiffhauer did an exhibit entirely of
self-portraits, each in a different style.
"The hard thing in doing portraits of these people [pointing to
paintings that will be in the exhibits] is that I don’t know them.
But I’ve immersed myself in biographies and their written works."
During his studies in New York, Schiffhauer became interested in
jazz.
"Music is symbolic of freedom. Coltrane compositions were so
spiritual, especially the Love Supreme that he did toward the end of
his life. Armstrong was America’s goodwill ambassador."
Schiffhauer hopes his paintings will remind viewers of the sacrifices
others made for freedom.
"So many things get lost in history. That’s why we have wars over and
over. People forget how horrible wars are.
"These people [in the paintings] paid a price to bring light and
truth into our lives. They shouldn’t be forgotten."
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