Monday 4 December 2017

Margaret Schauffler: in or out ?

It has been a bit silent recently in my Blog. The reason: the book on German Women Printmakers is finally in the phase of a proof edition. It is awaiting last and final decisions while this question of "in or out" happened recently. The book is a collection of some 500 entries (245 pages): short biographies of German printmaking women artists and their world: family, teachers, galleries, critics, printing houses, exhibitions etc....  


"Collecting art without knowing anything about the artist is like collecting stamps without a catalogue".  

 

German by family name and by heritage American printmaker Margaret Schauffler strictly does not "belong" in an index treating German Women Printmakers. But since I decided, as the sole author and editor responsible, to include American printmaker Helen Hyde because after all she'd studied with Emil Orlik, I decided to take Margaret "aboard" and include her fascinating  short biography composed after I di some research in her history. I found two paintings and one print titled "Garden Gate" by her. The print is currently for sale at Paramour Fine Arts Gallery in Franklin (Mich.) USA. 


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Schauffler, Margaret Reynolds 
(Cleveland Ohio USA 04-06-1896 - 1994)
American painter and printmaker.


Margaret was the daughter of missionary Dr. Henry Albert Schauffler (1837-1905) and his second wife Clara Hobart (1856-1942). She graduated from Oberlin High School in 1914 and received the A.B. degree in music, with Phi Beta Kappa honors, from Oberlin College in 1918. She graduated from the Cleveland School of Art in 1922 and received an M.A. in Art from Western Reserve University in 1931. From 1923 to 1961 she taught studio art and Asian art at Oberlin College, retiring as associate professor of art. 



After retiring, she taught art at Ashland College for eight years and continued giving private lessons in painting, jewelry-making and calligraphy until 1983. Many of her paintings were exhibited in Ohio galleries.  A woodblock print titled “Garden Gate” in yellow, greens and blue is known (Paramour Fine prints) known showing a house and gardens.

Margarets grandfather William Gottlieb Schauffler
Her father was one of 6 sons born to American missionaries Wilhelm (William) Gottlieb Schaufler (Stuttgart, Germany  22-08-1798 – 27-01-1883 New-York) and his American wife Mary Reynolds (Lougmeadow Mass. 13-04-1802- 09-01-1895 New Rochelle, New York) while serving in Constantinople, Turkey. With his parents W.G. Schauffler had immigrated from Germany to Odessa and then Izmir and Constantinopel in Turkey in 1826 after which he made his way to the US of America, where he worked as a woodturner and instrumentmaker also studying theology. Margaret's grandmother Mary Reynold's ancestors can be traced back in Brittain to the Doomsday book describing land, possessions and owners in and before 1066. It was ordered by William the Conqueror (1028-1087).  

"Sultan Ahmed Mosque" in Istanbul by unknown Fritz .......... (private coll) .
He then was sent and returned to Constantinople to work as a missionary among the Jews, the Armenians and German colony in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire. In 1843 he founded the “Deutschen Evangelischen Gemeinde” in Istanbul. He had a career as a missionary in the Orient for close to 50 years and became famous for translating the Old Testament into Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews (based on Old-Spanish and Hebrew) who after being expelled from the Iberian region (Spain, Portugal, South of France) in great numbers had come to live in the Ottoman Empire, Palestine being one of its provinces. W.G. Schauffler was a woodturner and instrument maker by profession, like his father Philip Frederick Schauffler who was married to Carolina Henrietta Schuckart from Stuttgart in the kingdom of Würtemberg (then a duchy). With his family of 5 children he lead a company of some 400 souls emigrating from Germany to Odessa in South of Russia in 1804 to arrive in 1805. He also lived and worked in Vienna to return to the USA in 1877.


In 1886 her father Henry Schauffler and Clara Hobart founded Schauffler College in Cleveland which started as a mission to Bohemian immigrants and women interested in religious education and social work. After his first wife Clara Eastham Grey (1842-1883) who bore him 9 children, had died in 1883 Henry Schauffler in 1892 remarried the schools first teacher Clara Hobart. With her he got another three childern. In 1954, Schauffler College became the Schauffler Division of Religious and Social Work at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology. It transferred to Defiance College in 1967.

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All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.

1 comment:

  1. I look forward to purchasing a copy of your book when it becomes available.

    ReplyDelete