The AGB has one of the largest collections of original paintings by Oscar Schlienger – many of which were donated by the executor of Oscar’s estate – Alfred Muma.Our collection includes two styles: landscapes and figures. 

Schlienger was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1905 and received training at ttion of murals in the Canadian Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in Chicago.Being an art teacher always seemed to be at the forefront of Schlienger’s life. During the war years, he taught classes alongside A. Y. Jackson and Charles Comfort. He also started creating editorial cartoons for The Globe and Mail newspaper. In 1942, he briefly drew some graphic stories for Bell Features Publications. He created two short series, “Lucky, the Unbeatable, and his Sport-Escapades”, that began in Joke Comics. His second feature, again in Joke Comics, was the adventures of Colonel Braggart, which ran from 1942 to January 1943.

After the war ended in 1950, Schlienger became an instructor for the Ontario Group of Artists at Gordon Payne’s Studio in Toronto. That year, he and his wife Suzanne moved to Peterborough, where he continued his passion for teaching at the Haliburton School of Fine Art, Sir Sanford Fleming College and evening classes at North Hastings High School. His work for a twenty year period at his studio in Peterborough, which was perhaps his most fruitful period of painting. In 1959 he was unanimously elected to the prestigious Ontario Institute of Painters, which included among its members former Canadian war-time comics artist Adrian Dingle. In 1970, three years after the death of his wife, Schlienger moved to Bancroft. He died on Remembrance Day 1991 at the age of 87.

Primary Source: Ivan Kocmarek