Late Career
After years of decreased activity due to personal strife in the 1970s and early 1980s, Sheffer gained national attention in the mid-1980s for his "Faces of Aging" photographic series. Thirty-five dramatic black-and-white portraits of his fellow residents at the River Hills East Health Care Center on Milwaukee's east side became an inspiring, travelling exhibition. The display travelled from Milwaukee to Newport Beach, San Diego, Chicago, Washington DC and Seattle. Together with Milwaukee artist Sue Bartfield, who worked with him on the project, he was honored in 1985 by the National Council on Aging in Washington D.C. for this work.
Sheffer remained engaged with art, music, poetry and ideas throughout his life. He often attended gallery and museum openings and presented lectures on his life's work at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design where he once told students: "Photography will change your life. After you photograph, you notice the light and it exposes you to beauty." His circle of friends gathered daily at the Brady Street Pharmacy in Milwaukee to discuss art and recent events. Former Milwaukee Art Museum photography curator Tom Bamberger described Sheffer as "the center of intellectual life" in Milwaukee. Sheffer continued to photograph friends and maintained a flower garden on the roof top of Christopher Street East Health Care Center until his death.
Read more about this topic: Walter Sheffer
Famous quotes containing the words late and/or career:
“Roosevelt could always keep ahead with his work, but I cannot do it, and I know it is a grievous fault, but it is too late to remedy it. The country must take me as it found me. Wasn’t it your mother who had a servant girl who said it was no use for her to try to hurry, that she was a “Sunday chil” and no “Sunday chil” could hurry? I don’t think I am a Sunday child, but I ought to have been; then I would have had an excuse for always being late.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“I seemed intent on making it as difficult for myself as possible to pursue my “male” career goal. I not only procrastinated endlessly, submitting my medical school application at the very last minute, but continued to crave a conventional female role even as I moved ahead with my “male” pursuits.”
—Margaret S. Mahler (1897–1985)