and influence Schimmel is known for his close working relationships with artists. In an interview with Charles Desmarais, he remarked, “Boy, you want to poison the well, you start putting curators in front! If you make them the ones that are leading the pack of dogs, you're going to follow the scent right into a bog! Whereas, if you stick with artists—and that's my total and simple mantra—if you stick with artists, it will keep you moving forward. Not every day in the right direction, but overall in the right direction.” Schimmel served as a co-director and chair of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. In addition to championing California art and artists, Schimmel is best known for organizing large-scale, speculative exhibitions that examine overlooked tendencies in art or the interstitial periods between established art movements. He has been particularly focused on art of the postwar era, especially Abstract Expressionism, Pop, and early performance art. In a 2005 interview, described his “interest in connecting different elements, and crossing boundaries through very large-scale thematic exhibitions that define a very specific aspect of who we are culturally.” Awards Exhibitions organized by Schimmel have won many awards, including seven from the International Association of Art Critics (AICA): Best Thematic Museum Show Nationally, Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1962; Best Monographic Museum Show Nationally, Robert Rauschenberg: Combines; Best Exhibition and Best Catalogue, Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979; Best Photography Exhibition, Sigmar Polke Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish; Best Catalogue, Hand-Painted Pop: American Art in Transition, 1955–62; and Best Exhibition, The Interpretive Link: Abstract Surrealism into Abstract Expressionism, Works on Paper, 1938–1948. In 2005, Robert Rauschenberg: Combines won two awards from the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC): Outstanding Exhibition in the Pacific Mountain Time Zone and Outstanding Book. In 1990, California State University, Fullerton, awarded Schimmel the Museum Studies Program Lifetime Achievement Award. He received the Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in 2001. References 1954 births Living people American art curators Artists from New York City American contemporary artists New York University Institute of Fine Arts alumni Syracuse University alumni San Francisco Art Institute alumni