Micah Schwaberow, printmaker, painter and sculptor, was born in Eugene, Oregon on October 26, 1948. While still a child, his family moved to California, first to San Mateo and then to Santa Rosa, Sonoma County. An early interest in art took root in the form of comic illustration, with a strip eventually published in the local paper. In the late 1960s he enrolled in classes at Santa Rosa Junior College, studying drawing and painting with Maurice Lapp. The 1970s saw a time of great and varied creativity for Schwaberow as he pursued scenic painting for California Renaissance Fairs, sign painting, carpentry, and woodcarving, in addition to painting and printmaking.

In 1980, while taking printmaking classes from Elizabeth Quandt at the Junior College, he took a two-week intensive course in the traditional moku-hanga method of Japanese printmaking on a whim at the Mendocino Arts Center. This would prove a pivotal experience. Finding great inspiration in the technique, he immediately wanted to learn all he could, and decided to further his studies in Japan. After two years of Japanese language classes, he moved with his wife, Linda, and daughter, Kyla, to Miasa, Japan. There he spent a month studying traditional woodblock printing before relocating to Nagai, where he would remain for a year studying with the Japanese master of color woodcut, Toshi Yoshida, and his master carvers and printers. In September of that year, he was invited by Yoshida to work as his an assistant during a three-week woodblock course for foreigners.

Throughout his career, Schwaberow gave lecture demonstrations at the University of California, Berkeley and at Mills College in Oakland, and produced a number of boxed suites of color woodcuts, including Tuolumne, Book I, which won first prize in a nationwide competition to commemorate Yosemite National Park. His style was often divided between two aesthetics that appealed to different views on life: using softer, nearly monochromatic, layered tones to encourage the viewer to quietly contemplate the landscape or figure; and in bold, luminescent colors that foster a sense of celebration and joy toward the subject at hand. In addition to his prints, Schwaberow included a sculptural element to his list of aesthetic endeavors, creating gourd vessels echoing the figures of birds and landscapes. 

His work is represented by galleries across the US and is in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Wichita Art Museum. His color woodcut, Morning Mist, Heath Township, was the 2009 Presentation Print of the Cleveland Print Club.

Micah Schwaberow died on 12 July 2022 in Santa Rosa, California. A book and catalogue of prints - the first of its kind - titled Festival of Light: the Color Woodcuts of Micah Schwaberow (Jaramillo, Piper. Cambria, CA. Mission Gallery Inc., 2024), has been written and published posthumously by Piper Jaramillo of Mission Gallery in Cambria, California. Originally intended to be published with Schwaberow, the artist passed before that could be accomplished. The book contains reproductions of Schwaberow's journals documenting his experience as a new printmaker, as well as preparatory sketches and paintings for such prints as "Chine Cove, Morning Light" and one of his earliest prints, a portrait of Yoshida's mother, the artist Fujio Yoshida. In-depth looks at the evolution of his style and his ever-growing interest in different media eloquently give insight into Schwaberow's great talent and his influence on those around him. This and a Special Limited Edition version of the book is available to purchase through Mission Gallery.

Selected Solo Exhibitions:
1989: Small Windows, Warner Roberts Gallery, Palo Alto, CA; Mendocino Art Center Showcase, Mendocino, CA
1990: Bless the Model!, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, CA; Micah Schwaberow: Woodblock Printmaker, Antonio Prieto Memorial Gallery, Mills College
1996: My Friend is a Vessel, various media, Quicksilver Mine Company Gallery, Sebastopol, CA
1998: Micah Schwaberow: Woodblock Prints and Gourd Vessels, the Verne Collection, Cleveland, OH
2000: Honor the Fire Within, various media, Azuma Gallery, Seattle, WA
2003: Micah Schwaberow, Azuma Gallery
2004: Micah Schwaberow: Of Two Minds, various media, Ren Brown Collection, Bodega Bay, CA
2009: Micah Schwaberow: Woodblock Printmaker, Stewart-Kummer Gallery, Gualala, CA
2013: Quiet Light, the Woodblock Prints of Micah Schwaberow, Mission Gallery, San Juan Batista, CA
2015: Celebration, Mission Gallery
2019: Festival of Light, the Color Blockprints of Micah Schwaberow, Mission Gallery (Cambria, CA)

Selected Group Exhibitions:
1982: 8th Independents Exhibition of Prints, Kanagawa, Japan
1982 - 1998: Yoshida Hanga Academy Annual Exhibit, Kabutoya Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1985:  Studying with Toshi Yoshida: Micah Schwaberow & Mary Jane Erickson, Kimura Gallery, Palo Alto; "Prints: An Invitational Exhibit", City Chambers, Santa Rosa, CA
1986:  Asking the Way: Micah Schwaberow & Sanae Nakajima, various media, Ren Brown Collection, Bodega Bay, CA
1987:  North of the Gate, Sonoma State University Art Gallery, Rohnert Park, CA
1988:  Portraits: An Extended Concept, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, CA; Parkside National Small Prints Exhibition, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha; 32nd National Print Exhibition, Hunterdon Art Center, Clinton, NJ; Mini-Print International de Cadaques, Barcelona, Spain
1989:  Yosemite Renaissance IV, Yosemite, CA; California Works, California State Fair, Sacramento, CA; Tradition and Innovation: Recent Acquisitions of the Achenbach Foundation, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA; California Small Works 1989, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, CA
1990: The Figure: Traditional and Beyond, and California Small Works, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, CA
1991: Works on Paper, Kimura Gallery, Palo Alto, CA; Works from the Permanent Collection, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, CA
1992: New Works: Kazuko Mathews & Micah Schwaberow, Mendocino Art Center Showcase Gallery, Mendocino, CA; Micah Schwaberow & Maurice Lapp, Ren Brown Collection, Bodega Bay, CA
1993: Printed From Wood, Joanne Chappell Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Over the Edge: Invitational Landscape Exhibition, and California Small Works 1993, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, CA; West Coast Edition Printmakers Invitational, Claudia Chaplain Gallery, Stinson Beach, CA
1994: Printed Matters, and The Shape of Space, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, CA
1995: A Gathering of Spirits: Sharon Spencer & Micah Schwaberow, Ren Brown Collection, Bodega Bay, CA; The Northern California Landscape: San Francisco and Beyond - Maurice Lapp and Micah Schaberow, Craftsman's Guild and California Heritage Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Yosemite Renaissance X, Yosemite, CA
1998:  Yosemite Renaissance XIII, Yosemite, CA
1998, 2000: East Meets West, various media, Craftsman's Guild and California Heritage Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2002:  Artistic Inheritance: Students of Toshi Yoshida, the Gage Family Art Gallery, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN
2022: The International Block Print Renaissance Then and Now: A Centennial Celebration of Block Prints in Wichita, Kansas, 1922-2022, Wichita Art Museum