Artist Jack Gerber made a career painting his own view of city life with bold colors and energy that radiates off the canvas. They show his skill in interpreting the noise and ambiance while stylistically moving beyond reality to exaggerated figures and forms. September 3 to October 2, RJD Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York, will host a retrospective for the 93-year-old artist. Titled Jack Gerber: Life in Color Revealed, the exhibition will feature paintings from throughout Gerber’s career that highlight his contemporary point of view.
Day in the City, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48"
“I met Jack Gerber in 1985, and purchased several artworks, long before I was in the art business,” says gallery owner Richard J. Demato. “Jack told me, ‘I’m developing my own mythology, otherwise, according to William Blake, you will be forever enchained by somebody else’s.’ Gerber loves expressing himself, was never afraid of boldness and each canvas is a banquet of colors, and each brushstroke an integral component of the composition as a whole. His art reminded us of the striking characters found in Max Beckmann’s paintings, the German painter of the 1920s expressionist period. Now over 35 years later, we still appreciate Jack and his art, and they still touch our hearts and minds, to live life long and with joy.”
Gerber was born in May 1927 in Philadelphia and studied at the city’s Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1953. His artwork has been museum exhibitions and at events, including the celebration show 150 Years and More at the Philadelphia Sketch Club from November to December 2009. The show also included works from Rockwell Kent, N.C. Wyeth, Thomas Eakins, Benton Spruance and Daniel Garber, among others.
News of the Day, acrylic on canvas, 52 x 32"
Of his work, art critic Edward J. Sozanski once said, “Jack Gerber’s paintings are not only skillfully composed and artfully painted, they generate an exotic ambience that’s both timeless and contemporary.”
Focusing on Gerber’s compositions, critic Burton Wasserman has noted, “A series of rare Gothic dramas in visual form, they are arrived at with the fluid medium of watercolor or the multi-layered richness of oil pastels on paper and acrylics. Love, transition, wonderment, uncertainty and memory are all given opportunities to speak in these tableaus. Everything unfolds as if in a dream, with offbeat fantastic images. Clearly they are never photographic mirrors of what one might see in the ordinary everyday world. Instead, vibrating with incredible gusto. They are revelations brought into being from the sinewy depths of his innermost subjective resources.”
A Day at the Beach, acrylic on canvas, 44 x 47"
“Jack Gerber is a man of his times, and then again, way ahead of it,” says RJD Gallery director Joi Jackson Perle. “Gerber’s artistic roots can be traced back to the New Objectivity movement that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. Artists of this movement included Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter and Jeanne Mammen. These artists rejected the self-involvement and romantic longings of the expressionists, and instead sought to engage the public, without romantic idealism, to characterize the bold life and attitude of everyday man and his family. This art turned inward to a more practical engagement with the world, which was intrinsically very American.”
The Kiss, acrylic on board, 46 x 37"
Perle continues, “Gerber’s style finds its core in these tenets of the New Objectivity movement. His idea to create artwork to which people could relate is revealed in his bold and colorful strokes that produced joyful scenes that elevate the day-to-day existence of humans into a celebration, and an appreciation of living in the moment. His love of people is evident in every painting, showing us in all our emotions and illustrating the beauty and fragility of life. Gerber’s works are timeless, and timely, as we look to maintain a connection with family and friends, and the joy of living, during these unsettling times of quarantine and isolation.” —
RJD Gallery
2385 Main Street • Bridgehampton, NY 11932
(631) 725-1161 • www.rjdgallery.com
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