Arthur Schilling

Native Artist

Native artist Arthur Schilling was born on April 19th, 1941 into a family of thirteen children on the Ojibwa Rama Reserve near Orillia, Ontario. As a child he developed rheumatic fever and suffered the severe after effects to his heart for the rest of his short life.

As a young man he sporadically attended art classes in Toronto, but he was not a comfortable student and left school to live out his own artistic vision. His style became distinctly his own...boldly impressionistic images of family, friends, his environment. His use of intense colour, applied so deliberately to a black ground gave his subjects life and a sense of meaningful character.

Arthur Schilling was the subject of a National Film Board documentary and the author/illustrator of The Ojibwa Dream a book published after his death in the Spring of 1986.