Gunther Gerzso

Gunther Gerzso was born June 17, 1915, in Mexico City. His father, Oscar Gerzso, was a Hungarian-born business man who migrated to Mexico in the 1890's. His mother, Dore Wendland, a German born in Berlin, was a singer and a pianist.

In 1927 Gerzso was sent to Lugano, Switzerland to live with his uncle, Dr. Hans Wendland, an art dealer, art collector, and art historian. It was during this period that Gerzso received his only artistic training. He attended various schools in Switzerland while living on his uncle's extensive estate, surrounded by outstanding works of art, ancient to modern. While in Europe he met Nando Tamberlani, an Italian stage designer and friend of the Wendland family, whose friendship influenced Gerzso to become a set designer.

The Great Depression forced his uncle to sell his estate and art collection so Gerzso returned to Mexico in 1931. He lived with his mother and sister and attended the German school. During this period, his artistic interests were expressed in drawings for theater sets and costumes, although without any hope of seeing them executed. After graduating in 1934, he met Fernando Wagner, actor, producer, and director, who used Gerzso's designs for the productions directed by him of works by such authors as Molière, Lope de Vega, and Shakespeare. Encouraged by Arch Lauterer, a former set designer for the Cleveland Playhouse and at that time professor at Bennington College, Vermont, Gerzso moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1935 to study at the Cleveland Playhouse. Assisted greatly by the technical director of the Playhouse, Sol Comberg, Gerzso soon became staff set designer and designed about fifty-six plays during the next four years.

In 1940, encouraged by a painter friend, Bernard Pfriem, Gerzso started his avocation as a self-taught painter. His growing interest in painting led him to decide to return to Mexico in 1941 and devote himself full-time to that activity. Financial problems the following year forced him to accept an offer from the Mexican film producer Francisco de P. Cabrera to design sets for the film version of the Mexican novel Santa. During the next twenty years Gerzso designed sets for about 250 films for Mexican, French, and American film companies. He worked for many directors, including among others Luis Buñuel, John Ford and Yves Allegret. He continued painting as a hobby.

His work in the 1940's reflected the influence of a surrealist group who were refugees in Mexico: Benjamin Péret, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Wolfgang Paalen. Travel in Mexico while filming awakened his awareness of the beauty and variety of Mexican landscape and his interest in pre-Columbian art. In 1959 Gerzso traveled to Greece, returned, and painted Recuerdo de Grecia , which was the first of the thirty-six paintings of his Greek period. By 1962 pre-Columbian influences reappeared inhis paintings. His retirement from film set design in 1962 allowed him to return to painting full-time.

Gerzso lives in Mexico City with his wife Gene Rilla Cady, a musician whom he met while both were studying at the Cleveland Playhouse. They have two sons: Michael, an architect and computer consultant, and Andrew, a musician and currently assistant to Pierre Boulez, IRCAM, Paris, France.

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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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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