Charles Steckler

Charles Steckler is a bricoleur, an assemblage artist who works as a painter, printmaker, photographer, draughtsman, stage designer, and collage and diorama artist. He has exhibited his work in numerous one-person and group exhibitions and has designed stage sets for over a hundred plays. He has been a Yaddo Fellow, an Associate at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, a Resident Artist at the Vermont Studio Center, a Prix de Rome Finalist and Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. He received his B.A. from Queens College and his MFA from Yale University. He is Professor of Theater and Designer-in-Residence at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

Steckler’s works are often characterized by a resourceful combining of common materials arranged in surprising ways to create intense, carefully orchestrated compositions. His dioramas and collages possess a rhythmic layering of objects and images set in densely packed spaces, vibrantly colored or starkly black and white. The works reveal a meticulous attention to detail while at the same time exuding a playful energy and humor. Ever present is the artist’s sense of joy and pleasure in the materials, in the juxtapositions he creates, and in the transformations he engenders. A strong narrative thread runs through most of Steckler’s works, setting him apart from many of his inspirational forebears like Joseph Cornell and Kurt Schwitters. This lively narrative impulse is a direct link with his work in the theater, and the dioramas can, in fact, be viewed as diminutive stage sets in which wondrous and whimsical dramas are eternally unfolding.

EDUCATION
Yale University, New Haven, CT MFA 1971
Queens College, City University of New York BA 1968
High School of Music and Art, New York City, NY Diploma 1963

RESIDENCIES AND FURTHER STUDY
American Academy in Rome, Visiting Artist, 2005, 2008
Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont 1988, 1992. 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2009
(Residencies)
International School of Art, Umbria, Italy 1999 (Residency)
Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida 1988
(Painting with Robert Natkin)
Eurocenter Language Institute, Florence, Italy, 1988 (Italian)
The Photography Center, Woodstock, NY 1983-88
(Photography with Duane Michaels, Christopher James, Lilo Raymond,
William Wegman)
International Center for Photography, New York, New York 1987
(Visual Diary with Eileen Kaye Berger)
Bristol Workshops in Photography, Bristol, RI, 1985
(Jungian Archetypes with William Parker)
Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York 1976, 1977,1978, 1985
(Photography with Charles Hagan, Nathan Lyons, John Wood, Ray K. Metzker)
Parsons School of Design/Lake Placid Workshops, 1984
(Book Design with John Wood)
New School for Social Research, NYC, 1979 (Italian)
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, 1979 (Studio Lighting)
State University of New York, Albany, 1975 (Lithography with Thom O’Connor)
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 1972 (Intaglio Printmaking)
Yale University, School of Art and Architecture, 1970
(Intaglio Printmaking with Gabor Peterdi)

EMPLOYMENT
Professor of Theater / Designer-in-Residence
Department of Theater and Dance
Union College, Schenectady, New York

SELECTED ART EXHIBITIONS
On The Surface: Drawings, Clement Art Gallery, Troy, NY 2009
Charles Steckler: Bricoleur/Bricolage. One-person Show, Lake George Arts Project,
Lake George, NY 2008
Then & Now, Albany Center Gallery, Albany, NY 2008
Charles Steckler: Stage Design, Retrospective Exhibition, Mandeville Gallery,
Union College, Schenectady, New York 2006
Mohawk-Hudson Regional Exhibition, Albany Institute of History and Art, 2002, 2005
Narrative and Declarative, Two-Person Show, Emma Willard School, Troy, NY 2004
Cyclics Annual Exhibition, Schenectady, NY 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
Charles Steckler: Dioramas, One-person Show,
Hooker-Dunham Gallery, Brattleboro, VT 2002
Contemporary Drawing, Albany Center Galleries, Albany, NY 1999
Photography Invitational,, RCCA: The Arts Center, Troy, NY 1997
18th Annual Photography Reg’l Exhibition, Albany Center Galleries, Albany, NY 1996
Light, Russell Sage College, Troy, NY 1993
Due Artisti, Two-Person Show, Scuola Eurocentro, Florence, Italy 1988
Charles Steckler, Photographs, Middle Tennessee State University, TN 1987
Naked, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 1985
Eros Arriving, Hamm-Brickman Gallery, Albany, NY 1985
Photography/Xerography, Pinnacle Gallery, Rochester, NY 1985
One-Person Show, Rutger Gallery, Utica, NY 1985
Off the Wall II, Marcuse Pfeifer gallery, NYC 1985
6th Annual Photography Reg’l Exhibition, Albany Center Galleries, Albany, NY 1984
The Artist As Image, Greene County Council on the Arts, Catskill, NY 1983
New Photographics ’83, Central Washington University, Ellensberg, WA 1983
4th Annual Photography Regional, Albany Center Galleries, 1982
17th Bradley National Print and Drawing Exhibition, Peoria, IL 1979
American Art Works on Paper, Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY 1979
Three-Person Show, Skidmore College Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY 1979
41st Annual Photography Exhibition, Arts of Upstate New York, Munson- 1978
Williams-Proctor Institute, Ithaca, NY

AWARDS
Strategic Opportunity Stipend, New York Foundation for the Arts 2005, 2008
Juror’s Award, Hudson-Mohawk Regional, Albany Institute of History and Art 2002
Vermont Studio Center Residency Grant, Johnson, VT 1988, 2001, 2009
Finalist, Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome, Italy 2000
First Prize, 18th Annual Photography Regional, Albany Center Galleries 1996
First Prize, 17th Annual Photography Regional, RCCA, Troy, NY 1995
Associate Fellow, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FLA 1988
Photographer’s Fund Grant, Catskill Center for Photography, Woodstock, NY 1983
Ford Foundation Faculty Development Grants 1975, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1985
Yaddo Residency Fellowship, Saratoga Springs, NY 1983
First Prize, 4th Annual Phtography Regional, Albany Center Galleries, 1982
Mellon Foundation Grant 1979
First Prize, Cooperstown Art Association Exhibition, Cooperstown, NY 1974