College mourns the passing of artist and educator Bob Schuler

It is with sadness that the College reports the passing of Robert Schuler on Dec. 3. He was 92.

A highly regarded artist who taught at SUNY New Paltz as a professor of printmaking from 1959 – 1976, Schuler is remembered by his former students and collaborators as an innovative worker and a generous educator.

Schuler was born on Oct. 9, 1925. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and later earned degrees from the University of Wisconsin and Florida State University.

Schuler began his most significant artistic undertaking in 1986, and continued working on it through the rest of his life. The Tethys Project, as he dubbed it, was a plan to construct a “subterranean necklace” of 500-pound granite cubes, to be buried on the ocean floor.

The project was the subject of a March 1986 New York Times profile of Schuler. At the time of his death, about 100 of his granite markers had been dropped every 100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean and Caribbean seas, the Panama Canal, and part of the Pacific Ocean. Plans are in place to continue the Tethys Project.

Bob Schuler is survived by Nora Crain, his partner of more than 40 years; his son, John Schuler, and John’s husband Philip Pinckney. His wife, Dorthy Schuler, predeceased him.

An obituary of Schuler published by George J. Moylan Funeral Home invites readers to sign his guest book and send private condolences.