Simon Schneiderman is a close observer of gesture and nuance, a facility he honed as a trial lawyer keenly watching witnesses in the courtroom for hidden meaning in the gestures they made as well as the words they spoke. Something he did for close to forty years.
One Door Closes another Opens
He became an artist through a circuitous path. He had worked as a writer for television and advertising before he went to law school at age twenty-seven. In law school he developed a writer’s block so pervasive that he fell asleep when he attempted to write anything original. He learned how to draw and paint to circumvent the block that brought on writing paralysis.
Beginning in 1975 he took part time art courses at OCAD and with John Michael Angel who ran a classical drawing academy modelled on the one created by Charles Bargue. But mostly he taught himself how to draw, by drawing incessantly. When he was riding the subway, when he sat in court waiting his turn to be heard by the judge and on holidays. He was never without a sketch book and pen in his pocket, unobtrusive, constantly observing and recording.
Drawing on People
His love initially and always was rendering people . He studied them closely as he did the figurative masters, classical and contemporary. His method was to sketch and photograph people in candid poses so he could draw them later. He even purchased a special telephoto lens with a hidden right-angle mirror that captured the person to his right or left even though it appeared he was photographing the person in front.
He experimented with media over the years, oil and acrylic and oil pastels but he always returned to graphite and watercolour.
Over thirty five years he has exhibited his work in solo and group shows as well as art fairs in Toronto and New York.
Preoccupied with My Father
When his father died in 2001, he was so affected by his death he was compelled to draw and paint his feelings about his father. At first this activity resulted in an exhibition of paintings, drawings and words, entitled Preoccupied with My Father. In 2007 this display was organized and published as a small memoir that launched multiple exhibitions in Ontario and elsewhere. The book was well received and merited a two page spread in the National Post shortly after its release.
Drawing on the Law
The law has been a source of Schneiderman’s imagery for many years. He has shown paintings of lawyers and did a comic strip for and about lawyers for several years, beginning in 1997 through 1999. He also used his affinity for image making to initiate an animated series produced by the National Film Board to help people understand legal principles of contract law, entitled Understanding the Law.
His most enduring legal artwork is a series of prints and cards about lawyers that continue to sell around the world, even to practitioner in countries that have legal systems different than our own.
Current plans
He retired from the law in December 2018 with the intention of devoting himself to full time drawing painting and to exhibit his work. Then came Covid and like everyone else his plans were suspended. But he persisted in drawing and painting and occasionally exhibiting on line as well as taking more art courses, albeit virtually, during the pandemic.