William Howard Shuster
William Howard Shuster Jr. was an American painter, sculptor and teacher.
He was born November 26, 1893 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the second of three children. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I in France, where he developed tuberculosis after being gassed. He moved to New Mexico in 1920 to improve his health, and became friends with the small but growing arts community.
In 1921 he became a members of Los Cinco Pintores, and showed throughout Santa Fe and the rest of the country as a group. In 1924 Shuster built and burned the first ever Zozobra, a giant puppet now burned every year in effigy, and symbolizing the gloom of the passing year. In addition to painting, Shuster received a disability pension and made money doing ironwork. In 1952, he created El Toro, a symbol for the Santa Fe Rodeo.
His artwork is in the permanent collections of the Stark Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Delaware Art Museum, Newark Museum, and New Mexico Museum of Art.
