Marianna Schmidt Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1918 -

Marianna Schmidt was born in Hungary in 1918 and immigrated to Canada in 1952, first settling in Edmonton where she studied medical technology. In 1960, at the age of forty-two, Schmidt moved to Vancouver, enrolled at the Vancouver School of Art and supported herself by working nights at Vancouver General Hospital. At art school she focused on printmaking with instructor Orville Fisher and was greatly influenced by the artist and instructor Jack Shadbolt. Her student work reflects her skill at drawing the figure and the impact of the expressive styles of Goya and Picasso.

Soon after graduating in 1964 her prints were recognized for their bold expressive qualities that presented figures in invented landscapes reminiscent of Bosch and Dubuffet. Throughout her career Schmidt engaged with international art movements. In the late 1960s and 1970s she produced a series of silkscreen prints informed by Pop Art and Hard-edge abstraction. The 1980s saw a return of expressionist figurative work, for which Schmidt had a lasting affinity. She especially admired the work of a number of German Neo-expressionist artists and during this time produced a large number of mixed media works on paper exploring the human condition through figuration.