Schulenburg l Oil Paintings

OIL PAINTINGS

Leading New England artist Paul
Schulenburg, widely praised for his
captivating images of the working
waterfront, addresses a range of subject
matter, from the intimacy of bedrooms
to the drama of city streets. His
figurative work digs below the surface
to manifest personalities and emotions.
Today, Schulenburg’s oils can be found
in prestigious collections throughout the
United States, in Canada, Europe, and
Asia. Accolades for his work continue
to accrue.

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PAUL SCHULENBURG

OIL PAINTINGS

PUBLISHED BY

ADDISONARTGALLERY

Dedicated to everyone who has supported
Paul Schulenburg’s work through the decades.

Cover: By the Pier, 2006, Oil on Panel, 30” x 24”
Copyright © 2020 Paul Schulenburg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form without written permission from Paul Schulenburg.
Designed by David Pry
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902933
ISBN: 978-0-578-64081-5
Published by Addison Art, Inc.
Box 2756
43 South Orleans Road
Orleans, MA 02653
508.255.6200
addisonart.com
[email protected]
Printed and bound in the United States

Table of Contents 6
7
About the Artist 8
About the Work 52
Waterfront 84
Onshore 106
Coastal Views 128
Interiors 146
Figurative Paintings 168
In the City 186
Figures and Portraits
Provincetown Artists

About the Artist

His client list included Cigna,
Fidelity Investments, Hewlett-
Packard, Houghton Mifflin, IBM,
Lucent Technologies, Prentice Hall,
Time, U.S. News and World Report,
The Wall Street Journal, and
Ziff-Davis.

Now an internationally collected

artist, Schulenburg has had solo

shows at the Cape Cod Museum

of Art, where he has also been in

many juried exhibitions; his work

has also been included at the

Provincetown Art Association and

Museum, the Cahoon Museum of

American Art, and Oil Painters of

Leading New England artist Paul Schulenburg, Photo by Julia Cumes America. Other group shows
widely praised for his captivating images of the include the Salmagundi Club,
working waterfront, addresses a range of subject
matter, from the intimacy of bedrooms to the drama
of city streets. His figurative work digs below the the Copley Society, and the Hopper House Museum.
surface to manifest personalities and emotions.
Schulenburg won the Patrons’ Choice Award at the
While inviting the viewer to grasp his own
experience, Schulenburg’s painterly realism allows Copley Society of Art and was awarded a month-
viewers their own interpretations. His ability to touch
his audience derives from a lifelong passion for long residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in
expression through art, intensive training, endless
hours of practice, and a fascination with the world Provincetown, MA. He was commissioned by the
around him.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to create a portrait
Growing up, Schulenburg was surrounded by oil
paintings created by his grandfather. His parents of museum trustee Eliot Forbes.
and early teachers encouraged his promising early
efforts by supplying him with books of illustrations Schulenburg’s oils can be found in prestigious
and cartoons and showing him sights that compelled collections throughout the United States, in Canada,
him to draw and paint. He earned scholarships to Europe, and Asia.
the Boston University School of Fine Arts, where
he studied with Joseph Ablow, Sidney Hurwitz, and He lives in the town of Eastham on Cape Cod with
John Wilson. His education at BU emphasized the his wife, Pharr. Their daughter Leah lives nearby with
fundamentals of classical art training: anatomy and her husband, Nate Church, and their son, Alex.
form, color, composition, and draftsmanship.

After earning his BFA in painting, Schulenburg worked
as a commercial illustrator. For two decades, he
created award-winning art for publications worldwide.

6

About the Work

With light and shadow, color and composition, France. A Room in France shows a bedroom with
Paul Schulenburg creates atmospheric moments— a door open to the outside. Dappled light filters
invitations to the viewer to complete the narrative. through the door, striking a delicate chair on which
hangs a towel. Warm and cool light balance each
Schulenburg’s “Waterfront” series of fishermen and other, while the chair, towel, and open door add to
women captures the gritty nature of their work the unsettled mystery of the setting.
under the intensity of summer sunlight. He uses
diagonal elements and cast shadows on the boat’s Schulenburg’s pictorial sensibility influences his New
hard-edged architecture, contrasting the vessel with York City scenes in a different manner, capturing
the softness of the water, sky, and shore. In using the sensation of being in a big city. Amid the hard-
a vantage point from above, he creates a flattened lined architecture, he plays with raking light or gray
perspective in which the horizon line is lost and a days, occasionally introducing a figurative element. In
figure is surrounded by abstract shapes. In By the contrast to the frantic pace of the city, Schulenburg’s
Pier, a lone figure sits in broken sunlight. Surrounded streets are alive yet remain motionless, frozen in time.
by the grays, blues, and earth tones of the boat, he
stands out with his orange oilskins and pink flesh. Honing the skills involved in drawing and painting
The diamond shape of the deck leads the viewer’s takes continual practice. For many years, Schulenburg
eye back to the waiting man. The light and shadow has hosted life drawing and painting sessions in
as well as the edges of the boat’s structure create an his studio, inviting fellow artists to join him. The
apex at which the fisherman sits, looking back out to importance of these studies is apparent in the
the sea from which he has recently returned. success of his more finished figurative work. In his
studies, a sculptural quality is evident in his depiction
Other genres among Schulenburg’s paintings tend of form and structure. Often using a few deftly
to be sparsely populated or devoid of human figures. applied brushstrokes, he manages to convey gesture,
In Letter Home a solitary soul sits writing on a rocky attitude, and personality.
Maine coastline. Schulenburg employs an L-shaped
composition, A red-and-white building in the Schulenburg’s mastery of portraiture is obvious in
foreground depicting the hard reality of the here and his paintings of Provincetown artists. Knowing the
now. A young woman sits to the right, before the artists in the creative community, Paul was inspired
vast, open ocean; its depth and emptiness symbolize to depict them not in formal, idealized portraits
the distance between herself and the person to but in their natural environments: he captures their
whom she writes. lives and spirit. He chose to paint Cynthia Packard,
for example, deep in thought in her studio; he used
Schulenburg lives on a narrow stretch of land the natural window light to backlight the artist and
between Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. her still-life subjects. Packard’s work, a celebration of
At low tide, the bayside flats extend for miles. Out abstract shapes and texture, encouraged Schulenburg
for a Walk shows a young woman strolling with her to paint this portrait in a looser style than is his norm.
dog, minute amid the vast expanse. With darkness He drew on the textural quality of Cynthia’s work for
below and piercing sunlight above, Clouds over the the painting of which she is the subject.
Bay brilliantly captures the drama of passing clouds. In
other paintings, Schulenburg captures various sailboats Paul Schulenburg observes and interprets the
at rest at low tide, listing to one side beneath the moon world around him. Like the shoreline, life is ever-
or illuminated by a rising or setting sun. changing and ephemeral. In the tradition of Charles
Hawthorne, Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, and
While centered on Cape Cod, a destination and countless other artists working though the ages,
home for generations of artists, Schulenburg’s work Schulenburg’s paintings record, interpret, and
is also informed and inspired by travels afar, including reveal the way we live today for the benefit and
the American Southwest, Mexico, Spain, Italy, and enjoyment of future generations.

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Ready to Ship, 2003
Oil on Panel
12” x 12”
Private collection

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Waterfront

“I am drawn to painting the
fishermen because their work
is so foreign to me. They risk
their lives on the open ocean
harvesting fish. I paint on dry
land, in less volatile conditions,
working to produce a painting.
“I feel a connection in that we both are involved
in work that dates back to man’s earliest days.
Since the beginning, human beings have caught
fish for nourishment, and they have drawn
—in the sand or on cave walls—for pleasure or
communication. In our modern age of diminishing
fish stocks and digital images, these ancient
endeavors hang in a precarious balance.”
—Paul Schulenburg

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In this early work, a young woman stands
confidently on the stern, like a beautiful
Renaissance figure, as she secures a heavy
line connected to the pier. Juxtaposing age
and beauty, Schulenburg contrasts the mostly
cool colors of the rusting hulk with the warm
illuminated orange of the woman’s coveralls
and the glow of her skin.

Provincetown Woman, 2003
Oil on Canvas
40” x 30”

Private collection

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By the Pier, 2006
Oil on Panel
30” x 24”

Collection of Jeff Bonasia

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Fresh Ice uses the negative shapes of the
boat’s zigzagging architecture to frame the
brawny fisherman shoveling ice. In the tradition
of John Singer Sargent and Joaquín Sorolla,
Schulenburg’s direct, intentional brushstrokes
carve out the three-dimensionality of the
figure along with the rippling folds of his attire.
Layered strokes of blues, pinks, and yellows
come together as glistening white ice.

Fresh Ice, 2012
Oil on Canvas

30” x 24”
Private collection

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A Tenuous Line, 2006
Oil on Canvas
40” x 30”

Private collection

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In His Father’s Shadow shows
Schulenburg’s use of the diagonal
element of design. The pier angles
left to right and the viewer’s eye
changes direction at the stern of the
boat, leading to the mooring balls
clustered like balloons. A young boy
sits in the sun looking into the water,
possibly thinking about what lurks
beneath the surface, or considering
his future work.

In His Father’s Shadow, 2000
Oil on Canvas
20” x 30”
Private collection

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A Boy and A Seal, 2014
Oil on Canvas
40” x 30”

Collection of Jenn and Josh Wilkes

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Fisherman Shoveling Ice, 2007
Oil on Canvas
40” x 30”

Private collection

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Pensive Fisherman, 2011
Oil on Panel
16” x 12”

Collection of Cheryl Taliaferro Kyle

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Pulling Nets shows a woman as
Botticelli might, with an expression
of spiritual devotion as she works.
Warm sun hits her back while cool
blues delineate the edges of her face.
The horizon is softened by fog and
mist rolling in from the sea.

Pulling Nets, 2019
Oil on Canvas
28” x 37”

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Afternoon Light at the Pier, 2011
Oil on Canvas
36” x 36”
Private collection

In the Balance, 2007
Oil on Panel
20” x 16”

Collection of Weldon and Dawn Rigby

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This Woman’s Work, 2018
Oil on Canvas
48” x 36”

Collection of Joe and Stacey Clarken

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August Son, 2011
Oil on Panel
30” x 24”

Collection of A Little Inn on Pleasant Bay

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Lobster Catch, 2006
Oil on Canvas
24” x 18”

Private collection

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“Paul Schulenburg is one of those rare
painters who can capture not just what
something looks like but what it feels like.
Waterfront work and the men who make
their living from the sea are utterly unique
in America. These paintings show both how
brutal the work is—repetitive, muscular, raw
—and how beautiful their world can be. To
capture both the human struggle of fishing
and the crushing vastness of its environment
is a rare talent. Schulenburg’s work makes
me feel like I’ve been on a dragger all day.
That alone makes his work a treasure.”
—Sebastian Junger,
author of The Perfect Storm

In the Shade of the Pier, 2018
Oil on Canvas
36” x 36”
Private collection

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Fisherman’s Wharf, 2007
Oil on Canvas
24” x 18”

Private collection

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On Approach to the Pier, 2014 Sorting Clams in Wellfleet, 2014
Oil on Canvas Oil on Canvas
40” x 30” 30” x 30”
Collection of David Saint
Collection of Karen and Richard Calo

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Water Spray, 2006
Oil on Panel
30” x 24”

Private collection

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Wait for the Next Boat captures a pier worker
at rest. Schulenburg uses impasto brush and
palette knife work to create concrete, which
sets it apart from the fluidity of seawater
behind. The hard-edged geometry of the pier
contrasts with the lyrical playfulness of the
water hose.

Wait for the Next Boat, 2008
Oil on Canvas
40” x 40”

Private collection

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Working on the Water, 2017
Oil on Canvas
40” x 30”

Private collection

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“Paul Schulenburg elevates the ordinary to
the poetic. His waterside scenes of everyday
employment are made beautiful by the sea-
light and sharp vision of his art: physical,
there-in-the-moment, but as transcendent as
the ocean itself.”
—Philip Hoare, author of
The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea

The Sea Spray, 2019
Oil on Canvas
40” x 30”

Private collection

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