Sheldon C. Schoneberg (1926-2012) American, Nude Signed and Numbered Serigraph. Depicts a topless woman reclining with her head and upstretched arm near the bottom of the frame. Signed and dated LXX (1970) in pencil bottom right. Titled "Oakland Evermore" in pencil bottom middle. Numbered 102/218 in pencil bottom left. Under glass. Small label with the title on back of frame. 

Overall Size: 35 1/2 x 23 1/4 in.

Sight Size: 34 1/4 x 22 1/2 in. 

Sheldon Clyde Schoneberg was born in Oak Park, Illinois on December 3rd, 1926. His family were Conservative-Reform Jews who moved the family to California in the late 1920s to avoid growing anti-Semitism in the Midwest. Here he encountered a wide range of art and new social groups, and he was particularly inspired by pulp magazines and the works of Norman Rockwell for the Saturday Evening Post. He served as a private with the United States Army in the final year of World War II, where he discovered the horrors of the Holocaust first hand. After being discharged he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and in 1947 he traveled to Italy where he specialized in fresco painting. In 1948 he went to Israel, where he spent time in Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan studying the work of Bezalel artists. He returned to the United States in 1950 and continued his studies, receiving his MFA from the University of Southern California the following year. After encountering the work of several visiting Mexican artists he traveled to Morelia to study their fresco techniques at Michoacan University, under the direct tutelage of Alfredo Zalce Torres. In 1952 he returned to Israel where he met and married his wife and had two children, but after several years teaching in Haifa and Kibbutz Ma’ale HaHamisha they decided to leave Israel permanently, unhappy with the aftermath of the Palestinian Nakba. His work began to shed its Jewish imagery in exchange for a more realistic-socialist style, with nationalistic allegories and Renaissance style motifs taking their place. Back in the United States he taught frequently at the Pratt Institute, as well as the University of New York and the University of Maine. His primary subjects were often women nude, making music, dancing, or surrounded by nature, and he continued to work and teach up until his death on June 26th, 2012 in Ashland, Oregon. Schoneberg's work is held in museums around the world, and his style influenced generations of students throughout Europe, the United States, and Mexico.