George Schumacher | American, 1913 - 1986
California photographer George O. Schumacher, M.D., graduated from Loma Linda University School of Medicine in 1940. He was then commissioned in the U.S. Air Corps during World War II and served as a flight surgeon in England from 1942 to 1945. He returned to practice medicine in California, first as a General Practioner and Surgeon and later as a Psychiatrist.
Photography was a life-long interest and hobby of Schumacher's. Photographing and spending time in the darkroom were his passion. He said he used photography as "a creative medium for self expression and communication." His favorite areas of California were the Central Coast, the Mother Lode, and Yosemite. These areas were the subjects of most of his work.
Schumacher met Ansel Adams in the mid 1950's and was a student of his for more than 20 years. As a result, Schumacher gravitated to the use of the Polaroid process about which he wrote, ". . . it essentially is the distinctive immediacy of the Polaroid process that permits the complete experience from the initial visualization . . . to the photograph in the 'here and now.'"
In 1967 Adams wrote a letter to Dr. Edwin Land, President of the Polaroid Corporation, introducing him to Schumacher's Polaroid photographs. In this letter, Adams wrote of Schumacher's work, "In my opinion, these prints represent the finest body of creative work in the Polaroid Land medium - in the black-and-white domains."
Schumacher's Polaroid photographs were reproduced in publications including Aperture, Art in America, Infinity, Polaroid Manual (by Ansel Adams), and Spectrum throughout the 1960's. Schumacher's Polaroid photographs were exhibited in a show at the Friends of Photography Gallery in Carmel in 1968.
California photographer George O. Schumacher, M.D., graduated from Loma Linda University School of Medicine in 1940. He was then commissioned in the U.S. Air Corps during World War II and served as a flight surgeon in England from 1942 to 1945. He returned to practice medicine in California, first as a General Practioner and Surgeon and later as a Psychiatrist.
Photography was a life-long interest and hobby of Schumacher's. Photographing and spending time in the darkroom were his passion. He said he used photography as "a creative medium for self expression and communication." His favorite areas of California were the Central Coast, the Mother Lode, and Yosemite. These areas were the subjects of most of his work.
Schumacher met Ansel Adams in the mid 1950's and was a student of his for more than 20 years. As a result, Schumacher gravitated to the use of the Polaroid process about which he wrote, ". . . it essentially is the distinctive immediacy of the Polaroid process that permits the complete experience from the initial visualization . . . to the photograph in the 'here and now.'"
In 1967 Adams wrote a letter to Dr. Edwin Land, President of the Polaroid Corporation, introducing him to Schumacher's Polaroid photographs. In this letter, Adams wrote of Schumacher's work, "In my opinion, these prints represent the finest body of creative work in the Polaroid Land medium - in the black-and-white domains."
Schumacher's Polaroid photographs were reproduced in publications including Aperture, Art in America, Infinity, Polaroid Manual (by Ansel Adams), and Spectrum throughout the 1960's. Schumacher's Polaroid photographs were exhibited in a show at the Friends of Photography Gallery in Carmel in 1968.