Sylvia Schuster Green Dancing Figure, 1979

March 19 – June 2026

Sylvia Schuster’s prolific and brilliant career spans more than six decades of artmaking, beginning at a young age in her hometown of Philadelphia, later in New York City and more recently in the American Midwest. A scholarship student at both the Rhode Island School of Design and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, two of America’s most prestigious colleges of art, she received a BFA and MFA degree respectively. Her innovative work and protean skills, along with her recognition as a master printmaker, have earned her many fellowships, awards and residencies in numerous museums, colleges, and universities, along with an equal number of exhibitions in museums, galleries and cultural institutions. Beginning in her mid ’20s, with a spectacular group of giant heads, rendered in charcoal, multi-media and collage that are often close to six feet in height, they have become a symbolic spearhead of her long and productive career.

“The heads were beautiful and they were all leaning down,” said Schuster. “They weren’t just sad. I think sad is not an important word to use for them. They had pathos, which is like, I have a certain amount of time in this world to make art and to be a person and live—and then it is going to be over. The knowledge of that short period of time was in their head. I think that is more like the pathos that I saw—it wasn’t just sadness.”