b. 1889 d. 1989

Site Affiliation: Carl Schmitt Foundation

Carl Schmitt’s century of life encompassed eighty years as a professional painter.  Born in Warren, Ohio, in 1889, Schmitt studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy. and then under Emil Carlsen at the NAD in New York. While a cartographer for the Army in WWI, Carl married Gertrude Lord in 1918 and settled in the artists’ colony of Silvermine, Connecticut, helping to establish the Silvermine Guild of Artists in 1922.  Although his early work was widely exhibited and acclaimed, in the early 1930s Schmitt decided to devote himself more exclusively to his art and to his family of ten children.  Sustained by a devoted wife, profound convictions, and a deep piety, Schmitt bore the poverty of the Depression, a disabling tuberculosis, and the drafting of four sons in WWII with unassuming heroism.  Save for extended stays in Chartres and in Florence, he continued to paint and write in relative isolation for nearly fifty years in Silvermine until his death at the age of 100 on October 25, 1989.

Fun Fact: Schmitt kept up lively correspondence with poets Hart Crane and Padraic Colum, and writer Hillaire Belloc.

Recommended Publications: Carl Schmitt: The Vision of Beauty by Samuel Schmitt (2013); Silvermine by Samuel Schmitt (2016).