Biography
Although relatively unknown outside the art cognocenti, Gunther
Gerzso is viewed by some critics as comparable to Pablo Picasso
and Joaquin Torres-Garcia. He is “one of the great Latin
American painters,” according to Octavio Paz, the Nobel Prize-winning
Mexican author.
Born in Mexico City in 1915, Gerzso's father
was a watchmaker from Hungary; his mother, a singer and
a pianist from Berlin. Six months after he was born, his
father died. His mother then married another expatriate,
the German owner of a popular jewelry store. He lost his
business during the Mexican Revolution, and in 1922 the
family moved to Europe.
In 1924 they returned to Mexico. After
his mother divorced her second husband, during her subsequent
economic uncertainty she decided to send Gunther, then
12, to live with her brother, Hans Wendland, an influential
art historian and dealer in Lugano, Switzerland. Wendland sold works by Rembrandt,
Cézanne, and Titian, and Gerzso recalls paintings
by Bonnard and Delacroix on the walls of his bedroom. Among
the important guests of the Wendland's was Nando Tamberlani,
an Italian stage set designer who became friends with Gerszo
while living on the estate for a summer.
As the impact of the Great Depression hit Europe, Gerzso's
uncle sold his estate and art collection. Gerzso returned
to live with his mother and sister in Mexico, where he enrolled
in a German school. During the next three years Gerzso sketched
set designs and wrote plays as he dreamed of a life in the
theater. On graduation in 1934, through a family friend he
began designing sets for a local theatrical producer.
A year later, he was offered a work-study
position at the Cleveland Play House, where he soon became
staff set designer. Over the next four years he designed
sets for some five dozen productions. A number of those
designs are being shown publicly for the first time in the
ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries' exhibition, “Gunther
Gerzso: Defining Mexican Abstractionism.”
While working in the theater, Gerzso
began to draw and paint subjects that interested him: attractive
young women and other individuals he met and saw in his
daily life. These early paintings, many of which are included
in this exhibition, clearly reflect his education and exposure
to works by artists from Europe, such as Matisse and Picasso,
as well as those of Mexico, like Diego Rivera and José Clemente
Orozco.
Urged by his friends to enter an annual juried exhibition
at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the self-taught painter was
so encouraged when two of his works were selected for the
show that he began to concentrate on painting. During the
1939-1940 period his paintings began to explore his Mexican
roots.
In 1941 Gerzso and his newly acquired
wife moved to Mexico City. Although he continued to design
costumes and sets for the theater and for 250 films, he
considered himself a painter. During the 1940s he associated
with a Mexican-based group of European Surrealists: Remedios
Varo, Leonora Carrington, Benjamin P éret, Alice Rahón,
and Wolfgang Paalen, whose influences, along with his anti-war
views, were reflected in his paintings during that period.
The ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries'
exhibition includes works from each of these periods in
the evolution of Gerszo's paintings, including a number
of drawings and paintings that refer to his Mexican origin
and others in the surrealist style, along with anti-war
statements. Eventually, he distilled the essence of Mexico's
pre-Columbian history into the textures and colors of the
abstract works that made him one of that nation's most
influential artists. Several magnificent examples of the
artist's mature abstractions are included in the ArtSpace/Virginia
Miller Galleries exhibition.
Along with being awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship in 1973, in 1978 Gerzso was presented with Mexico's highest
artistic honor, its National Award for Arts and Sciences.
He died in 2000.
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Brief Chronology
1915 Born Mexico City
1927-1931
Attended various Swiss schools in Lugano, Switzerland
1934
Graduated from the German School in Mexico
1936-1939 Staff
Set Designer at the Cleveland Playhouse Cleveland, Ohio
1940
Started his avocation as a self-taught painter Cleveland,
Ohio
1942-1962 Designed sets for
250 films
Solo Exhibitions
2004 Gunther Gerzso: Defining Mexican
Abstractionism, ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, Coral
Gables, Florida, February 6-April 30
2004 Risking the Abstract:
Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunther Gerzso, Mexican
Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago,
March 19-June 27
2003-04 Risking the Abstract: Mexican Modernism
and the Art of Gunther Gerzso, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico
City, November 12-February 22
2003 Risking the Abstract: Mexican Modernism
and the Art of Gunther Gerzso, Santa Barbara
Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, July-October 2003
2000
Gunther Gerzso, In His Memory , Mary-Anne Martin/Fine
Art, New York 2000 Gunther Gerzso,
The Last Decade, Galería
Lopez-Quiroga, Mexico D.F.
1996 Gunther Gerzso, Latin
American Masters Gallery, Beverly Hills, California
1995 Gunther Gerzso: Prints and Sculpture,
The Americas Society, New York
1995 Gunther Gerzso 80th Birthday Show , Mary-Anne
Martin/Fine Art, New York
1995 Gunther Gerzso.
Obra Receinte, Galería
Lopez Quiroga,Mexico, D.F.
1994 Gunther Gerzso. Pintura, Grafica y Dibujo,
1949-1993, Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico, D.F.
1993 Gunther Gerzso. Pintura, Grafica y Dibujo,
1949-1993, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca, Oaxaca,
Mexico
1990 Gerzso, Galería
de Arte Mexicano, Mexico, D.F.
1986 Gunther Gerzso, Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico,
D.F.
1984 Gunther Gerzso Retrospective, Mary-Anne
Martin/Fine Art, New York
1984 Gerzso. La Centella Glacial.
Un Dialogo Plastico en la Ciudad de Mexico, Sala Ollin Yoliztli,
Mexico
1982 Gunther Gerzso, One Man Show, FIAC 1982,
International Contemporary Art Fair, Paris, France
1981 Gunther Gerzso - Retrospectiva, Museo
de Monterrey, Mexico
1970 Gunther Gerzso:
Pinturas, Dibujos, Galería
de Exposiciones Temporales, Museo de Arte Moderno, INBA,
Mexico, D.F.
1970 Twenty Years of Gunther Gerzso, (Friends
of Mexican Art) Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona
1963 Gunther Gerzso, Exposicion Retrospectiva,
Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Mexico, D.F.
1958 Gunther Gerzso,
Galería Antonio
Souza, Mexico, D.F.
1956 Gunther Gerzso,
Galería Antonio
Souza, Mexico, D.F.
1950 Galeria de Arte Mexicano,
Mexico, D.F.
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Group Exhibitions
1992-1996 The Gelman Collection, Centro Cultural
de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico, D.F. This show later traveled
to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco,
California; and to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami,
Florida
1990 Paralelismos, Centro Cultural de Arte
Contemporaneo, Mexico, D.F.
1990 A New Antiquity of Form, Mary-Anne Martin/Fine
Art, New York
1990 Mexican Painting 1950-1980, IBM Gallery
of Science and Art, New York
1989 Museo de Arte Moderno,
25 Años
1964-1989, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico, D.F.
1988 Ruptura, 1952-1965, Museo Carrillo Gil,
Mexico, D.F.
1988 The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists
in the United States, 1920-1970, The Bronx Museum of the
Arts, New York
1987-88 The Woman and
Surrealism, Musée
Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland
1987-88 Imagen de Mexico, Der Beitrag Mexikos
Zur des 20 Jahrhunderts, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
1980 Mexique: Peintres
Contemporains, Musée
Picasso, Antibes, France
1979 Le Mexique d'Hier
et d'Aujord'Hui, Musée
du Petit Palais, Paris, France
1978 Seccion Anual de Invitados: Tamayo, Merida,
Gerzso, Salon Nacional de Artes Plasticas, Instituto Nacional
de Bellas Artes, Mexico, D.F.
1975 El Geometrismo Mexicano: una Tendencia
Actual, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico, D.F.
1975 12 Latin American Artists Today, University
of Texas, Austin, Texas
1966-67 Art of Latin America Since Independence,
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut and the
University of Texas, Austin, Texas
1964-65 Contemorary Mexican Artists, Phoenix
Art Museum, Phoenix Arizona
1961 The Sixth Tokyo Biennial, Tokyo Metropolitan
Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1958-59 Contemporary Mexican Painting, Fort
Worth Art Center, Fort Worth, Texas
1958-59 Mexican Art, Pre-Columbian to Modern
Times, University of Michigan
1957 The Fourth International Art Exhibition,
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1955 The Third International Art Exhibition,
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1952 Pittsburgh International
Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, The Carnegie Institute.
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BIbliography
Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Gunther Gerzso,
Mexico, D.F., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
1972. Monograph
Ida Rodríguez Prampolini, El surrealismo
y el arte fantástico de México, Mexico, D.F.
UNCAM, 1969, pp. 73, 90, 99-102
Octavio Paz, El signo y el garabato, Mexico,
D.F., Joaquin Mortiz, 1973, pp. 190-193
Michel Seuphor and Michel Ragon, L'Art Abstrait,
vol. 4, Paris, Maeght Editeur, 1974, pp. 93, 101-102, 238
Marta Traba, La zona
del silencio, Ricardo Martinez, Gunther Gerzso, Luis García Guerrero, Mexico,
D.F., Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1975, pp. 28-49
El geometrismo mexicano,
Mexico, D.F., UNAM Instituto de investigaciones estéticas, 1977, 'Los
Mayores: Mérida, Gerzso, Goeritz,' Xavier Moyssén,
pp. 51-75
Instituto Nacional de
Bellas Artes, Gerzso, Mérida, Tamayo, Mexico, D.F.,
INBA, 1979, pp. 19-59
Gerzso, Neuchâtel,
Switzerland, Editions du Griffon, 1983. Includes articles
by Octavio Paz and John Golding.
Dore Ashton, Gunther
Gerzso, Beverly Hills, California and Mexico, D.F., Latin
American Masters and Galeria López Quiroga, 1996
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Articles and Reviews
Wolfgang Paalen, preface
to the catalogue for Gunther Gerzso, Galería de
Arte Mexicano, Mexico, D.F., 1950
Jorge Crespo de la Serna, Gerzso, mago alquimista,
Excelsior, Mexico, D.F., May 14, 1950
Paul Westheim, Gunther Gerzso, Novedades, Mexico,
D.F., April 8, 1956
John Canaday, Mexican Modernism, The New York
Times, April 25, 1965
Justino Fernández, Pintura Actual: México,
Artes de México, Mexico, D.F., 1966
Stanton L. Catlin and Terence Grieder, Art
of Latin America Since Independence, exhibition catalogue,
New Haven, Connecticut and Austin, Texas, Yale University
Art Museum and University of Texas Art Museum, 1966, p. 174
and plate 98
Octavio Paz, El precio
y la significación,
Siempre, Mexico, D.F., November 30, 1966, p. vi
Raquel Tibol, Inconfundible lenguaje visual
de Gunther Gerzso, Excelsior - Revista dominical, Mexico,
D.F., March 15, 1970
Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Artes plásticas:
La obra mas reciente de Gerzso, El Día, Mexico, D.F.,
April 6, 1970
Octavio Paz, Gerzso: La centella glacial, Plural,
Mexico, D.F., October, 1972
Gunther Gerzsoy Wolfgang
Paalen en la Colección
Carrillo Gil, Excelsior, Mexico, D.F., October 1, 1972
Juan Acha, La estratificación pictórica
de Gunther Gerzso, Plural, Mexico, D.F., July, 1974, pp.
28-33
Jorge Alberto Manrique, Doce artistas latinoamericanos
de hoy, Plural, Mexico, D.F., December 1975, pp. 81-82
Dore Ashton, Comentarios
sobre la exposición:
Plural en Austin, Plural, Mexico, D.F., December 1975, p.
81
Dr. Donald Goodall, preface to the the catalogue
for Gunther Gerzso: Paintings and Graphics Reviewed, University
of Texas at Austin, Texas, 1976, pp. 13-15
Barbara Duncan, Behind the Artist's Walls,
in the catalogue for Gunther Gerzso: Paintings and Graphics
Reviewed, pp. 22-24
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