1927 Born in Media, Pa.
1937 Shows drawings to N. C. Wyeth at Chadds Ford. Wyeth encourages him and gives him art supplies. Stays in touch until Wyeth's death.
1938 Starts classes on Saturday mornings at the Philadelphia Graphics Sketch Club, where he is the youngest student. Inspired by an illuminated sign of a can of Sherwin-Williams red paint being poured onto the world.
1944 Graduates from Media High School. Turns down a football scholarship to the University of Utah. Works as an assistant tree surgeon and lifeguard to earn money for art. Begins study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. N. C. Wyeth writes recommendation: "This boy has the stuff." Studies under Franklin Watkins, Daniel Garber, and Walter Stuempfig. Begins discipline of drawing every morning in a notebook. Spends much time alone drawing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Makes sketches for Jasper Deeter at Hedgerow Theater in Rose Valley, Pa.
1945 Enters the U.S. Army, Air Corps.
1946 Returns to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Begins long solitary walks in the early morning. Exhibits in Philadelphia in group shows at The Philadelphia Art Alliance and The Philadelphia Print Club.
1947 Studies art with Abraham Chanin at the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa. Included in the annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Acadenly of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Marries Diana Denny. William Denny Scharf born Decenibei-27.
1948 - 49 Included in two-person exhibition at the Dubin Gallery in Philadelphia. Receives the Cresson Traveling Scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Goes to Paris and studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Travels to Italy, Belgium, and England. In England becomes friends with Leslie Illingsworth of Punch magazine, to whom he sells drawings. Takes classes at the University of Pennsylvanla in 1949.
1949 Dances with Shirley Temple at Harry Truman's inaugural ball.
1950 Reenters the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he has a one-person exhibition. Spends many evenings in jazz clubs sketching. Becomes friendly with Dizzy Gillespie.
1951 Divorced. Goes to sea working on a tanker that travels to Pennsylvania, Texas, and South America. Continues sketching in notebooks and reading William Butler Yeats. On return earns money as a clown diver in an acquacade and as a lifeguard in Florida.
1952 Moves to a studio in New York City above Jimmy Ryan's, a New Orleans nightclub on West 52nd Street; falls asleep each night to "When the Saints Come Marching In." Meets New Orleans clarinetist Omar Simeon. Begins work as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with artists John Hultberg and Charles Brady.
1953 Moves to West 53rd Street studio next to the Museum of Modern Art. Gets a job as a guard at MoMA and later teaches in Victor D'Amico's classes. Becomes close friends with Dorothy Miller and Mark Rothko. Rothko introduces him to other artists as "my young colleague." Also becomes friends with the photographer Jack Manning, the artist Julius Hatofsky, and the jazz musician Willie Dennis. Devotes his lunch hour to read to Abrahain Walkowitz, who is going blind. Becomes friends with other artists dlown town at the Cedar Street Bar, including Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning. Meets Stuart Davis, who mentions him in his notebooks.
1954 - 57 Exhibits in New York City in small group shows at the John Meyers Gallery, Poindexter Gallery, Avante Garde Gallery and the Heller Gallery.
1956 Marries Sally Kravitch, an actress, whose stage narne is Sally Jessup. Mark Rothko is best man and his wife Mel is matron of honor; the reception is held at the Rothkos' apartrnent. Included in the American Federation of' Art's "Museum Director's Choice," traveling group exhibition.
1958 Work included in group exhibitions at the University of Illinois Annual in Urbana., Ill., the Symphony Hall Guild in Bostou, Mass., MoMA in New York City, the Institute of, Contemporary Art in Boston, Mass., the Houston Museum of Contemporary Art in Texas, as well as the American Federation of' Art's "New Talent" traveling exhibition.
1959 Appears on Broadway as a reporter in "The Andersonville Trial". Drawings published in the New, York Herald. Included in all exhibition at the National Gallery in Dublin, Ireland.
1960 Has first one-person exhibition in New York City at the David Herbert Gallery.
1961 Artwork selected by Thomas Messer for the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art. Given the May Audubon Post Award at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
1962 Has second one-person exhibition at the David Herbert Gallery and shows for the first time at the American Gallery in New York City. Exhibits in the National Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, as well as at the University of Illinois, Annual in Urbana.
1963 Begins teaching painting and drawing at the San Francisco Art Institute. Included in exhibitions at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Conn.
1964 Has one-person exhibition at the Griffin Gallery in New York City. Begins assisting Mark Rothko on preliminary studies for the De Menil Chapel in Houston. Texas. Moves into a studio on Columbus Avenue in New York City. Teaches painting and drawing, at MoMA's Art Center. Aaron Anderson Scharfborn February 25.
1965 - 69 Treaches painting and drawing at the School of visual Arts, New York City.
1966 Meets Robert Beverly Hale, Curator of American Painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who becomes a close friend.
1966 - 85 Begins working during the summer at Tybee Island, Ga., in tire former studio of Alexander Brook. Next year finds space in an abandoned cotton warehouse in Savannah, Ga., on the river. Divides time there with teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Starts scroll paintings titled Continuum in river studio. Meets poet Conrad Aiken. In San Francisco has studio above Harrington's Bar on Front Street and exhibits first series of Continuum.
1967 Travels to Paris to see Picasso exhibition, then to Dublin and London.
1969 Teaches painting and drawing at the San Francisco Art Institute.
1970 Travels to Leningrad, Kalinin, and Moscow to study icons.
1973 Shows in small group exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery, in New York City.
1974 Teaches painting and drawing at the San Francisco Art Institute. Gives guest lectures at Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., and the California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco.
1976 Has one-person exhibition of Continuum scrolls (covers 3000 square feet) at the Neuberger Museum in Purchase, N.Y. Included in group exhibitions in Brussels., Belgium at Galerie Alexandra Monett and Les Ateliers du Grand Hornu Galerie d'Art. New York attorney general appoints him to serve on the board of the newly created Rothko Foundation.
1977 Has one-person show of Continuum at the Lerner-Heller Gallery in New York City.
1978 Exhibits Continuum at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Ga. Included in three-person exhibition at the Gurewitsch Gallery, in New York City, and also at Smith-Anderson Gallery in Palo Alto, Calif. Actsas guest curator for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's Rothko retrospective exhibition.
1979 Exhibits at the Smith-Anderson Gallery in Palo Alto, Calif. Gives a guest lecture at Pratt Institute, New York City.
1980 Travels to Greece and works on notebook drawings. Exhibits at the Summit Art Center in Summit, N.J. and at Hirschl & Adler Galleries in New York City.
1982 Travels to London and St. Ives in Cornwall; continues to work on notebook drawings.
1985 Displaced from Savannah studio when it is gentrified into an inn. Finds Studio in New York City on West 68th Street. Becomes friends with artist Esteban Vicente. Has one-person exhibition at Saint Peter's Church in New York Cltv.
1987 Has one-person shows at the Armstrong and the Elizabeth Bartholet Galleries in New York City and the Brownson Gallery at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y. Begins teaching painting and drawing at the Art Students League, New York City, where he still teaches.
1989 Travels to England and works on notebook drawings. Teaches painting and drawing at the San Francisco Institute of Fine Arts.
1993 Has one-person exhibitions at the University of Michigan Museum in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the Zimmerli Museum at Rugers University.
1994 The Phillips Collection., Washington., D.C., acquires "The Night is the Middle". In 1995 he gives the museum eight studies for it; 1996 he gives four more studies for it.
1994 - 99 Begins painting in Vinalhaven, Maine.
1996 - 99 Included in group show at the Anita Shapolsky Gallen, in New York City.
2000 Inchided in four-person show at the Anita Shapolsky Gallery and League Masters Now at the Art Students League, New York City.

1993 University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Mich.
1987 The Armstrong Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1987 Saint Peter's Church, New York, N.Y.
1987 Manhattanville College, Purchase, N.Y.
1985 Saint Peter's Church. New York, N.Y.
1984 Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Miss.
1982 Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Miss.
1979 Lerner-Heller Gallcry. Nc\ York, N.Y.
1978 High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga.
1976 Neuberger Museum, Purchase, N.Y.
1969 San Francisco ,Art Iustitute, San Francisco, Calif.
1964 Griffin Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1963 Zabriskie Gallery, Provincetown, Mass.
1962 The American Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1962 David Herbert Gallery New York, N.Y.
1960 David Herbert Gallery. New York, N.Y.
1950 Dubin Gallery. Philadelphia, Pa.

2000 The Twenty-Fourth Annual National Invitational Drawing Exhibition, Emporia State University. Emporia, Kans.
1999 Artists / Mentors, Denise Bibro Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1998 Self-Portraits, Art Students League, New York, N.Y.
1996 Hot Art, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1994 X Sightings, David Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.
1993 American Painterly Abstraction, Zimmerli Museum,. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.
1992 The Fifties, Part Two, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1980 The Papier, Summit Art Center, Summit, N.J.
1973 New Images, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York. N.Y.
1957 Five Contemporaries, Avant Garde Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1956 Twenty-Four Americans, Poindexter Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1955 Four Young Americans, Poindexter Gallery, New York, N. Y.

Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Mass.
Bradford Bank, Boston, Mass.
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Carnegie Corporation of New York, New York, N.Y.
Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, N.Y.
Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y.
Dennos Museum Center, Northwest Michigan College, Mich.
Hobart College, Geneva, N.Y.
Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, N.Y.
J. Patrick Larman Museum, Venice, Calif.
Mercer College, Mercer, Pa.
Mississippi Museum of Art Jackson, Miss.
Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y.
Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, Roslyn, N.Y.
National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian), Washington, D.C.
Neuberger Museum, Purchase, N.Y.
Newark Museum, Newark, NJ.
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Rockefeller University, New York, N.Y.
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, N.Y.
Telfair Museum, Savannah, Ga.
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga.
The Neurosciences Institute, San Diego, Calif.
The School of Visual Arts, New York, N.Y.
UniDynamics Corporation, Stamford, Conn.
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Mich.
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
Warburg, Pincus Co., Inc., New York, N.Y.
Winston-Salem Museurn of Art, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Yale-New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Conn.

"About Art and Artists." New York Times, 21 December 1955.
"Americans to Watch in 1965." Pageant (1965): 91.
"An Artist's View of His Fellow Actors." New York Herald-Tribune, 1 May 196o.
"Art and the River." Savannah-News Press, 14 August 1983.
Ashton, Dore. "Exhibition at the American Gallery." Arts and Architecture 79 (December 1962).
Ashton, Dore. "Art: Visions by Scharf." New York Timcs, 13 January 1962.
Beals, Katie. "Art Bursts with Vitality." Westchester Rockland Newspapers, 18 June 1976.
Brown, Tony. "Acclaimed New York Painter Finds Refuge on Factor's Walk." Savannah Morning News-Evening Press, 14 August 1983.
Chanin, Abraham. Introduction. In David Herbert Gallery Catalogue (New York: David Herbert Gallery, 196o).
Collage / Assemblage (Summit, N.J.: Summit Art Center, 198o), 21.
DeKay, Ormande. "Bill Scharf's Drawings." Art World 12 (November-December 1987): 8. Directory of Contemporary Prints, s.v., "Scharf, William." 1985.
Edelman, Gerald M. "The Wordless Metaphor: Visual Art and the Brain." In: Biennial Exhibition Catalogue (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995), 42-43 (Illus.)
Forecast (Lerner-Heller Gallery, New York, 1979, exhibition brochure).
Green, Roger. "Scharf Exhibit Affirms Vitality of Abstract Art." Ann Arbor News, September 1993.
Hooten, Bruce. "The New Show in Sculpture and Painting." New York City News, 18 September 1978.
Judd, Donald. Complete Writings 1959-1975 (New York: New York University Press, 1975).
Kozloff, Max. "New York Notes," Art International 6 (February 1962): 71.
Linea: Journal of the Art Students League 3 (summer 1999).
Kramer, Hilton. "Art: A Continuum of Energy."' New York Times, 30 July 1976.
Manningjack. The Fine 35mm Portrait (New York: American Photographic Book Publishing Co., 1978), cover, 46.
Matthew, Ray.-William Scharf at St. Peter's." Art World 9, no. 7 (1985): 12.
Mellow, James R. "Four Paintings at the Poindexter Gallery." Art News 55 (1956): 80.
Mellow, James R. "Freshness vs. Seasoning: Two Schools of Thought." New York Times, 1974.
O'Doherty, Brian. "Art: Three Studies in Free Association." New York Times, March 1960.
O'Doherty, Brian. New York Times, 30 May 1964.
O'Doherty, Brian. William Scharf (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Art, 1993).
People Magazine, 30 November 1987,128 (illus.).
Raynor, Vivien. "New York Exhibitions." 36 Arts Magazine (February 1962): 38.
Tillim, Sidney. "Exhibition at the Herbert Gallery." Arts Magazine 34 (April 1960): 57.
"New Talent in the United States." Art in America 46 (spring 1958): 22 (illus.).
University of Illinois Catalogue (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1961), 200.
Vigtel, Gudmund. High Museum Catalogue (Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1978).
Who's Who in America, 45th ed., s.v., "Scharf, William." 1988-89, 2733.
Who's Who in American Art, s.v., "Scharf, William." 1978-2000.
Who's Who in the East, 21st ed., s.v., "Scharf, William." 1986-87, 709.

"William Scharf - Paintings, 1984 - 2000", Preface by Eliza Rathbone,, Esays by Hilton Kramer "The Paintngs of William Scharf", Harry Rand "William Scharf: History Painter" and Brian O'Doherty "William Scharf: The Long and the Short Eye"; Edited by Johanna Halford-MacLeod, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Exhibitions Catalogue, November 18, 2000 - January 21, 2001, 72 pages, 44 color ill., 1 B/W ill., ISBN 0-943044-25-1