Theodore Roosevelt Schuyler
Ted Schuyler was born in Trinidad, Colorado on November 2, 1904, which was the day Teddy Roosevelt was elected President, hence the name. Ted was the son of John and Frances Schuyler, and had five brothers and two sisters. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1920's, as well as having some art education in New York. He met his wife, Lee Clarke, while at the Art Institute, and they were married in 1932. The Schuylers set up residence in Albuquerque, New Mexico shortly after their marriage, and remained residents there until 1978 except for three years from 1942 - 1946 when they were in Gallup, NM and Ted worked at the Ft. Wingate Ordinance Depot as a civilian employee. Their first daughter Trudie was born in Albuquerque in 1939 and second daughter Noelle in Gallup in 1945. Returning to Albuquerque, Ted resumed active painting and teaching art classes associated with such groups as the Albuquerque Women's Club and the Wives Club at Kirtland AFB. His wife Lee did significantly less painting while the children were young, but resumed active work in her later years.
Ted is well known among his former students and numerous friends. His "public works" include a mural of the move of Spanish settlers from Bernalillo to Albuquerque which was painted on the wall of the Hacienda Restaurant in Old Town Albuquerque. That mural has just been restored by artist Karen Deaton of DreamScapes in Albuquerque.
Ted also painted three large (4' x 8') panels on a religious theme, entitled "A Triptych from the Gospel of St. John" which were donated by his family and are now on display at Second Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque. In 1978, Ted and Lee Schuyler moved from their long-time home in Albuquerque to their daughter Noelle Guinn's house in Los Lunas, NM, where they remained until February of 1987. They then relocated to the home of Ray and Trudie Barreras in Atlanta, GA. Ted passed away in Atlanta in January of 1990, leaving his wife, Lee, two daughters, Trudie and Noelle, and seven grandchildren. In August following Ted's death, an invitational retrospective exhibit of his work was organized at the Albuquerque Art League Gallery, primarily put together by Lee, Noelle, and Trudie's daughter Therese (Tish) Gorman. Over 100 of Ted's works were displayed at that time, with accompanying commentary by those from whose collections they were derived. Ted was very generous with his work, typically giving a "demonstration watercolor" to each new student who attended his classes, as well as donating paintings to be sold for charity auctions. He regularly submitted to juried shows, and some of his works are in permanent collections such as that of the New Mexico State Fair. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any comprehensive listing of the locations of such works available. At the present time, most of the Schuyler works whose location is known are in the private collections of his children and grandchildren, as well as his siblings' children. Most of them have shown no particular interest in disposing of these works, but rather cherish them and display them in their own homes.
Ted painted extensively of the Southwestern scene, sketching in watercolor when on site with his classes, and sometimes rendering more completed studies in oil, egg tempera or casein. He greatly enjoyed working in permasol (transparent) oil. One subject which fascinated him was Indian dances and ceremonies. He did several paintings of the Santo Domingo Corn Dance, all from memory since photographs or sketches of that ceremony were not allowed by the tribal authorities. He also did two paintings from impressions of the Zuñi Shalako festival. His "masterwork" of the Santo Domingo celebration was executed in egg tempera and represents over 600 hours of actual painting time. That painting is currently in the possession of his granddaughter Tish; one of the two Shalako paintings belongs to his granddaugther Lorna Barreras, and the other to his granddaughter Diana Guinn Whitaker. In addition, Ted did numerous portraits. One of his favorite activities was to paint a portrait of a high school graduate as a "gift" to the parents, who he said deserved recognition for having succeeded in getting a kid through school. Many of these portraits, as well as a number of landscapes, and the previously-mentioned Triptych, were displayed at his memorial exhibit.
Lee Clarke Schuyler
Lee Clarke Schuyler was born in Chicago, IL in 1907, the daughter of architect Edwin B. Clarke and Louise Forestall. She attended the University of Illinois for a short while, and then began her art education at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she met Ted Schuyler. They were married in 1932. They lived in the Chicago area for a short while, but after a prolonged “painting tour” to Mexico in the mid 1930’s, settled permanently in New Mexico. Their first daughter, Trudie, was born in Albuquerque in 1939. When she was three, the Schuylers moved to Gallup so Ted could take up work as a civilian employee at the Ft. Wingate Ordinance Depot. This was not a happy time for Lee; both her aging parents were living with them for a while, and Louise died just after Christmas in 1944. Lee also had a miscarriage during their time in Gallup, and needed to stay effectively housebound in order to carry their second daughter, Noelle, to term. Shortly after Noelle’s birth in December of 1945, the Schuylers returned to Albuquerque.
While the girls were young, Lee did very little painting. She always claimed that motherhood fully satisfied her creativity, but part of the problem may well have been the difficulty of keeping little fingers off the palette. However, she did accomplish several major projects, including sculpting a 9-foot tall wooden Indian to serve as the logo for a trading post in Embudo, New Mexico. Sculpture was something she really wanted to do, and another of her works is a ¾ life size statue of Trudie at about age 12, carved from ash wood.
During the late 1970’s and early ’80’s, due to inappropriate blood pressure therapy, Lee became depressed and lethargic, and in 1982, during a sketching trip to the Navajo Reservation with Trudie, fell and cracked her pelvis. This exacerbated her medical problems, and a crisis resulted which required hospitalization and parathyroid surgery. Fortunately, at that time her blood pressure regimen was changed, and subsequently a hip replacement operation greatly enhanced her quality of life. In the summer of 1986, the Schuylers visited Trudie and Ray Barreras in Atlanta, GA, and Lee began enthusiastically painting again, doing portraits of her grandchildren during that year. In 1987, when the Schuylers moved permanently to Atlanta, Lee continued actively painting. She also did a number of etchings that were printed in limited edition by Atlanta print artist William Livesay.
After Ted’s death in 1990, followed quickly by Noelle’s death in 1992 and the death of her beloved grandson Stephen Barreras in 1993, although Lee continued to paint, her enthusiasm was somewhat diminished. She observed that she was so used to sharing her art endeavors with Ted that she often sadly missed his loving critiques. However, she and Trudie often took advantage of Atlanta’s lovely spring and fall colors for sketching. Eventually, though, her arthritis became so severe in the late ‘90’s that she was sometimes only able to do brief pencil sketches. She had two one-woman shows at the church Trudie and Ray attended, one at the time of her 90th birthday. As was the case with Ted’s work, Lee’s is greatly cherished by her descendants, and most of it is on display in the homes of her children and grandchildren.
Trudie Schuyler Barreras
Trudie Schuyler Barreras, born Gertrude Louise Schuyler in 1939, was the first daughter of artists Ted and Lee Clarke Schuyler. Her first few months were spent in the patio apartments in what had originally been the Casa de Armijo in Old Town, Albuquerque. When she was three, the Schuylers moved to Gallup, New Mexico, where she remembers at least three separate domiciles – a unit in a motel that was renting long-term due to WWII gasoline rationing that limited tourism, a short stay with another family, and the “house on the hill” where grandparents Edwin and Louise Clarke lived with them. Trudie’s earliest memories include sketching trips out in the hills around Gallup with her parents, and incessantly drawing on paper bags and cardboard boxes. Her parents teasingly told her she was part of the cause of the paper shortage during the war.
Trudie drew constantly, and after the Schuylers resumed their residence in Albuquerque, she began going with Ted’s art classes on sketching trips during the summer when she was out of school. As it happens, one of Ted’s students was Trudie’s fourth grade teacher, and recounted that when Trudie had finished her schoolwork, she would occupy her time by drawing. Once when the principal visited the classroom and queried why the teacher allowed this, she pointed out that the regular work was completed, the activity was not disruptive, and why should the child’s creativity be challenged?
While attending Valley High School in Albuquerque from 1954 – 1957, Trudie was blessed to be able to take art classes with Frank Walker, an exceptionally good teacher as well as being an accomplished artist. During her senior year, she was one of two illustrators of the annual, an endeavor that took up most of the year. However, by the time she entered college in 1957, Trudie had decided that she didn’t have the “grit” to attempt to make a living as an artist, having observed through her childhood the extreme management skills her mother Lee had to develop in order to maintain a household on an artist’s income. Therefore she majored in Chemistry, only taking one art course from UNM professor Kenneth Adams, one of Ted’s favorite New Mexico painters. Of course, she continued to paint and draw, and as often as possible observed her parents at work.
Trudie married Ray Barreras in 1959, and their daughter Therese (Tish) and son Stephen were born in 1959 and 1961 respectively. There followed a move to graduate school in Michigan, where two more children, Lorna, born 1963, and Antonia, 1965, were added to their family. During the years from ’61 – ’66, Trudie completed an MS and Ray a PhD in Organic Chemistry. They then moved to Tuskegee, AL, where Ray taught full time in the Chemistry Department and Trudie did part time work teaching a science course for elementary school teachers. In 1969 the Barreras' adopted their fifth child, Carlos. During this time, due to family and job responsibilities, Trudie’s painting was sporadic, although she did a number of portraits and figure studies of students. At this time she learned to work in oils, and eventually decided that acrylics were easier and did just as well for what she wanted to portray.
In 1974 the family moved to Tsaile, AZ where Ray continued to teach full-time, and Trudie taught a course or two. She also purchased a horse, and due to the lovely scenery began to do a great deal more watercolor painting. In 1978 the entire family with the exception of Tish moved to Atlanta, GA. There, Trudie worked for an independent educational firm called Discovery Learning, Inc. until 1984. In the fall of that year, she began teaching Chemistry at Avondale High School in DeKalb County, GA, which continued until her retirement in 2003. Again, her painting was fairly steady, mostly occurring during the lovely spring and fall months when Georgia is at its most spectacular or on trips back to the Southwest. After Lee and Ted moved to Atlanta in 1987, Trudie enjoyed renewing her “studies” with her professional-artist parents. Since her retirement, however, she has gone into high gear, and currently works weekly with an art group. She has begun doing pastel portraits of pets and babies as an act of love for their “parents”, and has found this a most rewarding endeavor.
Devon Kateri Gorman
