Ursula Schneider

In the Past:

I have always liked the ancient apple trees standing on the meadows high above the towns  near the pine forests where I grew up by Lake Zürich in Switzerland. I traveled with my bicycle to explore all that was growing in the forests, the planted vineyards, fields of wheat and meadows with cows, while I was keeping an eye on the distant mountains and the clouds.

My mother was working with my father in architecture, and later after my father passed she built many of her own projects. After the 10th grade I graduated from the Waldorf School and I worked with my mother in her ceramic business,  “Rabiusla” in Herrliberg. I made a degree in Ceramics while I was also attending courses at the Kunstgewerbe Schule in Zürich. The most important class assignment for me was to paint all the exercises from Johannes Itten’s The Art of Color. My mother introduced the family to all the current art of the time by traveling to the Biennale in Venice, Italy with my sister, brother and me.

In 1968 I moved from Switzerland to San Francisco to find out how, I could evolve my art to become an artist.

I attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where I received my MFA in painting in 1968-1972.

I was working with and learning from many of the artists there. 

I moved to New York in 1980 into a loft near China Town in Soho and became an artist member in the AIR Gallery where I was showing my art. This was an active community of women artists. 

Here and Now 2022:

About my drawing and painting:

I begin by drawing from nature as well as composing geometric color abstractions, both of these serve as a basis for my paintings.

I paint on wooden panels, incorporating the wood textures with the painted colors to create the images. I grew up working in ceramics in Switzerland and I learned to experiment with a variety of materials and processes which have influenced my painting practice now.

I moved in 1980 from Manhattan to Rockland County. My studio is in The Garnerville Arts & Industrial Complex, Garnerville, NY.

Selected one and two person exhibitions: 

2022  Langstein Gallery, Nyack, NY 

2020  Buster Levy Gallery, Cold Spring NY Two Person show of large woodcuts

2019  Buster Levy Gallery, Cold Spring NY, Mokuhanga Woodcuts

2017  Buster Levi Gallery, Cold Spring NY

2016  Ruth Baggett Gallery, Paducah,KY, Paintings and Prints

2012  Quer Kunstraum, Bern, Switzerland

2009  Braunstein Gallery, San Francisco CA 

1996  A.I.R. Gallery, New York, Paintings in 19

1989  Atelier Rabiusla, Herrliberg, Switzerland

1982  Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland