Hans C. Schuler, noted Baltimore sculptor and founder of an art school that bears his name, died Saturday of cancer at the Baltimore Rehabilitation and Extended Care Facility at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Northeast Baltimore. He was 86.
In his art, Mr. Schuler employed the techniques of the Old Masters of the Renaissance.
Examples of his work include portrait busts, commemorative medals for universities and hospitals, and architectural renderings for numerous churches and public buildings.
Two noteworthy examples of his work are the Minute Man statue in the Reserve Officers' Association Building in Washington and della Robbia-style reliefs on the facade of Haussner's Restaurant in Highlandtown.
He also completed the 75th anniversary medal for Goucher College, the Johns Hopkins University 50-year alumnus medal and the college seal medal for St. Mary's College of Maryland in St. Mary's City.
In 1959, he established the Schuler School of Fine Arts at 5 E. Lafayette Ave., which is run by his daughter, Francesca Schuler Guerin.
Tylden W. Streett, who attended the school and is a successful Baltimore sculptor, said, "He was a first-rate teacher who patiently showed you how to begin a piece. There was no arrogance. He was a quiet man who was gifted with a good nature."
He described Mr. Schuler's work as representative of the figurative academic style.
"There wasn't anything he didn't know about making a sculpture and he had such an enthusiasm for art," said Will Wilson of San Francisco, a portraitist and graduate of the Schuler School and former teacher there.
Mr. Wilson credited Mr. Schuler with being a major influence on his career. "And there certainly wasn't a kinder man," he said.
Mr. Schuler was born at 7 E. Lafayette Ave., the son of Hans Schuler, the nationally known sculptor and former director of the Maryland Institute, College of Art. His father's statues of Johns Hopkins, Sidney Lanier, Gen. Casimir Pulaski and Martin Luther are Baltimore landmarks.
Growing up in the Lafayette Avenue home, Mr. Schuler played with clay in his father's studio.
"In fact, the first thing I remember was getting thrown out of the studio! I was just about able to walk and I could reach up, and one day I fixed some roses that he'd done on a relief," he told The Sun in 1981.
"He could never figure it out. He came in: 'That's the funniest thing. I thought I did those roses last night, and they're gone.' So, I got booted out."
Despite his father's attempts to dissuade him from pursuing a career in the arts because it was a difficult way to make a living, Mr. Schuler continued working with his father, who died in 1951.
"Hans learned the sculpture business literally at his father's knee," said Charles F. Gentile of Glen Burnie, a former teacher of sculpture at the Schuler School. "With his father, he had the opportunity to work on many large monuments, huge architectural works, portrait busts and reliefs, medals and trophies in bronze, stone and ceramic."
Mr. Schuler graduated from Baltimore City College and earned a bachelor's degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 1935. He studied at the Maryland Institute's Rinehart School of Sculpture for five years and attended evening school at the Maryland Institute.
After serving as an infantry captain in the Army during World War II, he taught sculpture at the Maryland Institute in the late 1940s and 1950s, with his wife, Ann Didusch, a painter whom he married in 1945.
Both were influenced by Jacques Maroger, a French painter who stressed the value of learning to paint and sculpt by learning the techniques used in the Renaissance.
In 1959, as art veered from traditional styles to abstract expressionism -- improvisatorial, dynamic, free in technique -- the Schulers left the Maryland Institute and established the Schuler School of Fine Art, where Mr. Schuler worked and taught in a large studio that was illuminated by a large skylight.
A memorial tribute will be held at 1: 30 p.m. Sunday at the Schuler School.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Schuler is survived by a grandson and two nephews.
Pub Date: 3/24/99