William Samuel Schwartz was born in Smorgen, Russia on February 23. 1896 and died in Chicago February 10, 1977. He studied at the Vilna Art School in Russia from 1908 to 1912.

At the age or six-teen he immigrated to America and three years later entered the Art Institute of Chicago where he was awarded a schol-arship. To help support himself, he worked 16 hours a day waiting on tables, ushering in theatres, singing in concerts and operas. In 1912, the year after graduation from the School at the Chicago Art Institute (with honors in life study, portraiture and general excellence in painting), he made his American debut at the an-nual show of Artists of Chicago and Vicinity. Since that time his work has been seen in national and international exhibitions held in this country and abroad. Schwartz worked in oils, watercolor, lithography, and as a sculptor.

Schwartz's work has been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum or Art; Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum; Pennsylvania Academy; Art Institute of Chicago; Joslyn Museum; Oklahoma Museum; Dallas Public Museum and State Muse-um of Illinois; Associated Artists Gallery and numerous other museums.

His works are also included in many important private collections. He is represented in the following permanent public collections; the Art Institute of Chicago; the San Francisco Museum; the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Santa Barbara Museum or Art; Denver Art Museum; Art Alliance of Philadelphia; Encyclopedia Britannica, American Peoples Encyclopedia: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; Library of Congress and Department of Labor, Washington. D. C.; Henry Gallery; Des Moines Art Center; Montclair Art Museum; Elgin Academy; Detroit Insti-tute of Arts; Musee Julf, Paris, France; En Herod Museum; Tel Aviv Museum, Israel, Bir-Bidjan Museum, Russia.

Collec-tions of Universities of Illinois, Chicago, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, Minne-sota, Monticello College, Bradley, Chicago Public Schools. Oshkosh Public Museum. Union League Club of Chicago and others. In total, fifty-three museums and university galleries own William S. Schwartz's works.

He has done murals at the Chicago World's Fair or 1933; Cook County Nurses Home, Chicago; and in Post Offices at Fairfield, Eldorado, and Pitts-field. Illinois.

Since 1922, Schwartz's works have been written about and reproduced in more than one hundred publications by every major art critic in the nation.

He received awards for paintings and lithographs at the Detroit Institute of Arts; Art Institute or Chicago (on five dif-ferent occasions from 1927-1945); the Scarab Club of Detroit; Honorable Men-tion; Monticello College, Godfrey, Illinois; First Prize; Albert Kahn Prize, Temple Beth El, Detroit, First Prize; Covenant Club, Chicago, Prizes, 1936-1941; First National Lithography Exhibi-tion, Oklahoma Art Center, Honorable Mention; 4th National Lithography Ex-hibition, Oklahoma Art Center, First Prize; Corpus Christi Art Foundation, Corpus Christi, Texas, Honorable Men-tion; Union League Club of Chicago, First Prize.

Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton