Ward Schumaker

Ward Schumaker (1943) is a San Francisco-based illustrator whose work has appeared in over a hundred magazines worldwide, as well as a celebrated fine artist, both a painter and a sculptor. But his success as an artist was not a foregone conclusion. As a student at University of Omaha, Ward entered a painting competition and won first prize, only to be told that the work was pornographic and that he needed to withdraw or he’d be thrown in jail. (It was not, by any measure, but this was 1960s Nebraska.) He left the state, became a paper salesman, and turned his back on art, apparently forever. Fifteen years later he returned to his dreams. He was sitting at the dinner table with his young son when he had an epiphany. “I was miserable and I didn’t want my son to be the child of someone who was miserable.”