Janet M Schneider

Not Dark Yet #1, 2021

Oil on canvas
25.5" x 19.5"
NFS

Artist Statement

"Attention is the beginning of devotion" - Mary Oliver

My paintings are nature-based. To make them requires a lot of looking. I have always been attracted to the illusion of space on a two-dimensional surface. Beyond this, I am deeply attached to certain landscapes, and I try to capture something of their beauty, stillness and timelessness. During the pandemic, making these paintings became a form of meditation for me. I have spent countless hours becoming intimate with these land/seascapes--absorbing their sights, sounds, smells and even their taste. Although based on sensory experience, to a large extent my work is also dependent upon my memory of these encounters. The takeaway-- to share my conviction that there is something far greater than what we see on the surface.

About The Artist

Janet M. Schneider, artist, curator and arts administrator, has had a long and varied career in the Arts in New York City.
 
Ms. Schneider is a summa cum laude graduate of Queens College, with a major in Fine Arts. While at Queens College she studied painting with Louis Finklestein, Gabriel Laderman, Rosemary Beck and Harold Bruder among others. She completed special study in Fine Arts at Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute where she studied with Robert D’Arista. She also studied Chinese painting in New York City with C.C. Wang.
 
Ms. Schneider joined the Prince Street Gallery in 1973.  She held solo exhibitions there in 1974, 1976 and 1981. Her work has also been included in various group shows in the New York City Area.

Ms. Schneider has been active as a curator for The Queens Museum and various other organizations. Selected collections arranged include: New Images: Figuration in American Painting, 1974; Sons and Others: Women Artists See Men, 1975; Masters of the Brush: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy from the 14th to the 19 Century (catalog with Leon Chang) 1977; Symcho Moszkowicz: Portrait of the Artist in Postwar Europe, 1978; Joseph Cornell, Revisited, 1992 and Irene Buszko: Flowering Trees of Victorian Richmond Hill, 2019. 

Ms. Schneider served as Executive Director of the Queens Museum from 1977 to 1989. She lives in Flushing and East Hampton with her husband, Michael F. Sperendi.