Plasma Gallery, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Gunther Gerzso Biography

1915-2000

Mexican-born master painter and printmaker Gerzso creates open landscapes treated as geometric objects.

As a young man, he moved to Lugano, Switzerland, with his uncle Hans Wendland, an art dealer and disciple of the art historian Heinrich Wolfflin. In his uncle?s home Gerzso met various writers, art critics and painters, among them Paul Klee. This was Gerzso?s only aesthetic education.

In 1929, Gunther Gerzso studied at the Lausanne. Interested in new architecture, he made contact with the Italian set designer Nando Tamberlani, who encouraged him to pursue a career in decoration.

In 1934, he met Fernando Wagner, actor, producer and theater director, who used Gerzso?s set designs in plays by Moliere, Lope de Vega y Shakespeare, directed by Wagner himself.

In 1940, without Gerzso painted his first oil painting, two women, which shows the certain influence of Carlos Orozco Romero.

In 1941, he continued his studies in California, and, at the same time, began to create set designs for film.

In the forties and fifties, Gerzso designed more than 150 sets for Mexican and foreign cinematic productions; he worked with Luis Buñuel, John Ford, Yves Allegret, among others. These projects were the object of a posthumous homage in 2000, in which he was awarded a special ?Ariel? award.

Apart from his professional work, Gerzso painted oils inspired by the European surrealists who were then living in Mexico: Benjamin Pret y Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Wolfgan Paalen y Alice Rahon. Gradually he abandoned the figuration of his early works. The influence of French artist Yves Tanguy?s metaphysical landscapes pushed him in that direction: Gerzso painted open landscapes treated as geometric objects.

In 1950, Ines Amor organized a first exhibition of Gerzso?s work in the Galeria de Arte Mexicano. Until 1962, however, Gunther Gerzso continued working in set design. At that time he decided to devote himself exclusively to painting. In 1970, the Phoenix Museum, in Arizona, dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him. In 1973, he received a Guggenheim fellowship. A tireless worker, Gerzso exhibited periodically in the Galeria de Arte Mexicano, in Mexico City, as well as in New York and Paris.

After 1955, Gerzso?s own style became more exact, quickly abandoning the open landscapes, the confluences of symbolic elements, to compose with purely geometric motives. At the same time, his tecnique became more refined, as he experimented with varied media.

Gerszo's work has been widely exhibited for more than 70 years and can be found in some of the most important international museums and collections.