Detailed Biography

Early years

As soon as he learned to hold a pencil and a brush, he started to draw and paint with passion. After living in Burgundy, Provence and Côte d'Azur near Saint Tropez, his family settled down in Nièvre in 1953. At the age of 10, Schuss met French painter Albert Drachkovitch-Thomas, who discovered his talent. He offered him his first professional paintings box and brushes and introduced him succinctly to the tempera technique.

As an adolescent, he was inspired by the mystical power of Light. One day, he saw a warm, strange golden light – as if it was inhabited – glowing through the window of a fortified castle in ruins. This stream of light touched him deeply. This image has been part of him and has influenced his art in many ways.

But it is as a self-taught artist that Paul Schuss learned others pictural techniques like acrylic, watercolor, inkwashing, mixmedia and pastel. He exhibited for the first time at the age of 17 in the Chapelle Sainte Marie (Nevers, France) with Le Salon du Groupe Nivernais. He showed painted he had created these paintings at the age of 14, 15 and 16. All these paintings were bought by the Prefecture de Nevers and other collectors.

He began studying law in Paris but eventually decided to devote himself entirely to art at the age of 19. In 1968, as he was living in Paris, he met Erté (fashion illustrator of the 1920s and creator of visual spectacle for French music-hall revues).

1970s

He left for Austria in 1971, in search for his family roots. He lived in Salzburg for two years, and for six years in Vienna. In 1972 he showed his art in the famous Palais Lobkowitz in Vienna - the very own palace where Ludwig van Beethoven performed and conducted his Third Symphony for the first time in 1804. He met the Doctor Karl Kanzian, who will become the most important collector of Paul Schuss' paintings in Europe.

In 1974 Prinz Otto zu Windisch-Graetz (related to Prinz Rudolf of Austria, son of the Emperor Franz Josef von Habsburg-Lothringen and Sissi -Elisabeth of Bavaria) and several relatives visited him in his studio in Vienna. Prinz Otto zu Windisch-Graetz shot photos of his important tempera paintings like "Dialog with the Eternal", "Power of Nature", "The Town without Soul", "Last Suns".

1980s and 1990s: France and Japan

In 1979; Paul Schuss returned to France, where he has been residing since. In 1980, he became part of one of the most important galleries of Paris: La Galerie d'Art de la Place Beauvau. The director, Jean Minet, said about Paul Schuss: " He is one of our eminent painters, yes he is an eminent artist.".

In 1987, he met Marc Squarciafichi, who became his manager in Japan. Paul Schuss was exhibited in the Daimaru Galleries in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. Starting that year, Doctor Sozo Hino, owner of the Hino Hospital and great collector, began collecting the art of Paul Schuss to create a Schuss Museum in Osaka, Japan. The project stopped in 1991, after the French government restarted the nuclear tests in the Pacific. At this time all French items were boycotted.

However, the exhibits continued and for more than 15 years, Marc Squarciafichi exhibited Schuss' work alongside artists such as Bernard Buffet, Leonor Fini, Mac Avoy, and Yves Brayer. Schuss had thus joined the School of Paris ( Ecole de Paris), and was exhibited in the biggest cities of Japan-Osaka, Tokyo, Kyoto, Kobe, Fukuoka- in important galleries like the Daimaru Galleries, the Bijutsu Sekai Gallery, the Mori Art Gallery, and the Nikken Gallery.

Lithographies

In 1987, he started working with lithography at the world-famous Atelier Mourlot in Paris, where artists like Salvador Dalí, Norman Rockwell, Matisse, Arno Breker or Picasso had worked as well. He made a point to officially destroy the plates used for his lithographs and decided to sell each lithograph with an authenticity certificate signed by Jacques Mourlot.

He made 11 editions until 1990: 5 editions in color and 6 in black and white (monochrome). Even though Jacques Mourlot told him that no artists were making monochrome lithographs anymore and that only color ones were being produced, Schuss still believed in the beauty of black and white lithographs. In 1989, Paul Schuss was the first artist to create black and white lithographs again in France. This latter became as famous as his color lithographs in Japan. His works includes " The refuge Tree", "Untamed Passions", both in 1989, followed by " Waiting", " The old bridge", " The crows" and " The forgotten letter", in 1990.

1990s and 2000s:

In the 1990s, while still exhibiting in Japan, Schuss continued working in France, with Jean Minet's collaborators in various art galleries in important French cities such as Orléans (Galerie l'Art Ancien), Lille (Galerie Schèmes), Rouen, Reims, Toulouse, etc.

Schuss was a permanent artist at Minet's La Galerie d'Art de la Place Beauvau, in Paris. When his collaborators were asking to take some of Schuss paintings to exhibit in their own gallery, Minet could not always accept, saying that he did even have enough of Paul Schuss art work for his own gallery!

In 1996, Schuss' art went to the French West Indies, to St Marteen's Gallery Olivier Arens.

In 1998, Schuss reconnected with his roots in Burgundy, and exhibited in the gorgeous Medieval town of Vézelay. One journalist wrote in an article in the newpaper Le Journal du Centre: "Vézelay has finally found its painter."

2000s until now

In 2000, the Galerie Artop in Lille, France, exhibited Schuss. It was one of the first galleries starting online art sale.

In 2002, Schuss became a member of the Society for the Art of Imagination, gathering painters with the same inspiration. He was exhibited in two galleries in London, UK.

In 2003 and 2004, Paul Schuss opened his studio to the public in his Burgundian house of Sainpuits. It was an immediate success. People from all over the country came and enjoyed meeting the artist in the place where he creates and enjoy getting to know the artist himself showing and talking about his creations.

With great joy, the public experienced a retrospective exhibition of Schuss' work at the Maison de l'Amérique Latine, in Monaco, in 2005.

Since 2005, Schuss has been painting in the Burgundy home of his childhood, where he can connect with nature, and continue being inspired by the mystical atmosphere of the region, while spending time with his family, and exhibiting in various countries and places: Shipstore Galleries, Hawaii, USA, in 2007, Salon de l'Art Fantastique Europeen (SAFE) in Mont-Dore, Auvergne, France, and Galerie Mourlot, New York, (Lithograph) USA, in 2012; etc.