Karl Zerbe (September 16, 1903 – November 24, 1972) was a German-born American painter and educator.
Biography
Zerbe was born on September 16, 1903, in Berlin, Germany. The family lived in Paris, France, from 1904 to 1914, where his father was an executive in an electrical supply concern. In 1914 they moved to Frankfurt, Germany where they lived until 1920. Zerbe studied chemistry in 1920 at the Technische Hochschule in Friedberg, Germany.
From 1921 until 1923 he lived in Munich, where he studied painting at the Debschitz School, mainly under Josef Eberz. From 1924 until 1926 Zerbe worked and traveled in Italy on a fellowship from the City of Munich. In 1932 his oil painting titled, ‘’Herbstgarten’’ (autumnal garden), of 1929, was acquired by the National-Galerie, Berlin; in 1937, the painting was destroyed by the Nazis as "Degenerate art."
From 1937 until 1955, Zerbe was the head of the Department of Painting, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In 1939 Zerbe became a U.S. citizen and the same year for the first time he used encaustic. He joined the faculty in the Department of Art and Art History at Florida State University in 1955, where he taught until his death.
He was grouped together with the Boston artists Kahlil Gibran (sculptor), Jack Levine and Hyman Bloom as a key member of the Boston Expressionist school of painting, and through his teaching influenced a generation of painters, including, among others, David Aronson, Bernard Chaet, Reed Kay, Arthur Polonsky, Jack Kramer, Barbara Swan, Andrew Kooistra, and Lois Tarlow.
His works are thought significant because they record "the response of a distinguished artist of basically European sensibility to the physical and cultural scene of the New World".
Solo exhibitions
1922: Gurlitt Gallery, Berlin, Germany
1926: Georg Caspari Gallery, Munich, Germany; Kunsthalle, Bremen, Germany; Osthaus Museum, Hagen, Germany
1934: Germanic Museum (now Busch-Reisinger Museum), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1934, 1935, 1936, 1937: Marie Sterner Galleries, New York City
1936, 1938, 1939, 1940: Grace Horne Galleries, Boston, Massachusetts
1941: Vose Galleries, Boston; Buchholz Gallery, New York City
1943: Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts
1943, 1946, 1948, 1951, 1952: The Downtown Gallery, New York City
1943, 1947: Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
1945, 1946: Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
1946: Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan
1948, 1949: Philadelphia Art Alliance, Pennsylvania
1948, 1955: Boris Mirski Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1950: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York
1951-1952: Retrospective Exhibition circulated by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, traveled to: Baltimore Museum of Art; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire; Florida Gulf Coast Art Center, Clearwater; M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts;
1954: The Allan Gallery, New York City
1958: Florida State University, Tallahassee; Ringling Brothers Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida
1958, 1959, 1960: Nordness Gallery, New York City
1960: New Arts Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia
1961-1962: Retrospective Exhibition circulated by The American Federation of Arts, Boston University
Work in public collections
Zerbe's work is in various public collections, including:
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, United States
Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, United States
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut, United States
Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, United States
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Brooklyn Museum, New York City, New York, United States
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, United States
Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, United States
Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, United States
Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire, United States[9]
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, United States[10]
Düren Leopold Hoesch Museum
Fogg Art Museum and the Busch Reisinger Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States[11]
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, United States
Kestner Museum, Hanover, Germany
LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts, Tallahassee, Florida
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California, United States
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, United States
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States[12]
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, Alabama, United States
Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York, United States
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, United States[13]
Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States[14]
National Gallery of Art, Washington, United States[15]
National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York City, New York, United States
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Sarah Lawrence College, Westchester County, New York, United States
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, United States
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich, Germany
Staedelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, Germany
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia, United States
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States[16]
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, New York, United States[17]
Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas, United States
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