Judith Schwarz

Judith Schwarz (born 1944) is a Canadian visual artist. Her work has been featured in exhibitions since 1979. integrating art with the environment.

Schwarz's earliest sculptural exhibit, entitled Parallel Language (1987), was a three-part work juxtaposing a circular die-cut steel sheet wall mounted, angling out from it onto the floor—a steel beam, and a leaf shaped steel stencil next to a beautiful slab of oak. In a review written by Linda Genereux in Artforum, Genereux states "The strength of Judith Schwarz's work depends upon her dexterous handling of material and a growing vocabulary of forms..."

Schwarz has created public commissions in both Vancouver and Toronto, Canada. In Francois-Marc Gagnon's description of Schwarz's sculptures in The Canadian Encyclopedia, Gagnon states "..."the elegant, flame-cut steel cosmological configurations of Judith Schwarz invent rather than transform cultural signs and devices whose mysteries are embedded as much in the juxtaposition of the materials, glass, steel, and wood as in their form".

In 1990 at the 75th Anniversary of the Emily Awards, Schwarz was presented with an Emily Award. She was among the 75 distinguished alumni of Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design that were recognized for their outstanding career achievements.

The University of Waterloo Art Gallery circulated a 10-year retrospective of Schwarz's work, titled Dissembling Structures, curated by James D. Campbell. This exhibition was presented at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo (1998), the Concordia University's Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Toronto (1998), and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design's Charles S. Scott Art Gallery, Vancouver (1999).

Schwarz was awarded the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award in Visual Arts by the Canada Council in 1998

Selected exhibitions Recent Sculpture, Forest City Gallery, London, Ontario (1985) Shadow of the Palace, S.L. Simpson Gallery, Toronto, Ontario (1986) Reciprocation, The Gallery/Stratford, Stratford, Ontario(1989) Art Gallery of York University; Toronto, Ontario (1990); Centennial Gallery, Oakville, Ontario (1991) Old Man River Exhibition, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Alberta (1991) Fictive Space Collaborative Exhibition with Arlene Stamp, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary, Alberta (1994) SCULPTURE/sculpture, S.L. Simpson Gallery, Toronto, Ontario (1996) Dissembling Structures/Structures dissimulees – a survey of Judith Schwarz sculpture 1989–1998, University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo, Ontario (1998); Helen & Bina Ellen Art Gallery - Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec (1998); and the Charles S. Scott Art Gallery - Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, British Columbia (1999) Judith Schwarz, Sable Castelli Gallery, Toronto, Ontario (2002)

Selected bibliography Judith Schwarz: Heterodoxy, a club for unorthodox women. The radical feminists of Heterodoxy: Greenwich Village, 1912-1940. Thesis (M.A.), San Jose State University 1977 Dewdney, Christopher; Stebbins, Joan (1986) Judith Schwarz (catalogue) Lethbridge, Canada: Southern Alberta Art Gallery Gallery/Stratford (1989) Reciprocation: Judith Schwarz (catalogue) Stratford, Canada: Gallery Stratford Arnold, Grant (1989) Judith Schwarz (catalogue) Windsor, Canada: Art Gallery of Windsor Grenville, Bruce; Dewdney, Christopher (1990) S.L. Simpson Gallery, 1980-1990 (catalogue) Toronto, Canada: S.L. Simpson Gallery McEvilley, Thomas (1995) Fictive Space Judith Schwarz and Arlene Stamp,(catalogue) Calgary, Canada: Illingworth Kerr Gallery of the Alberta College of Art and Design Campbell, James D.; Wyatt, Joseph (1998) Dissembling Structures: a survey of Judith Schwarz sculpture, 1989-1998 (catalogue) Waterloo, Canada: University of Waterloo Art Gallery