William Scharf

[2] In 1948 he received the Cresson Traveling Scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, went to Paris and studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.

During this time he became friends with Dorothy Miller and Mark Rothko, as well as the photographer Jack Manning, the jazz musician Willie Dennis, and other artists frequenting the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village, including Julius Hatofsky, Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning.

Former board member Victoria Hibbs added: "Bill loved teaching and respected each student"s style...

[6] Scharf's style draws on these influences to create compositions of organic and geometric shapes, that are immediately recognizable.

[3][2] On the Hollis Taggart Gallery website his work is described as follows: "Scharf combines virtuoso paint handling, vibrant color, and rich symbolic language in canvases that engage the viewer in a transcendent and emotional dialogue.

This dialogue is accomplished in part through recurring symbols, which allude to hidden, mysterious narratives.

But he was also a profoundly scholarly painter, drawing omnivorously upon symbols and themes from across art history as well as literature and distilling them into studiously balanced wholes.