...I wonder whether if André Breton had seen the totality of Gerzso's work he might not have been forced to invent a new category of Surrealism, as he had done in the 1940s in his desire to bring Gorky's achievement into the surrealist fold, whether he might not have been forced to acknowledge the ability of abstract art to challange our preconceptions of perceived reality.

John Golding, Gunther Gerzso and the Landscape of the Mind,
Gerzso, Editions du Griffon, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1983

Gunther Gerzso was born June 17, 1915, in Mexico City and died April 21, 2000. 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, 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 his uncle's, 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 is survived by his wife Gene Rilla Cady, a musician whom he met while both were studying at the Cleveland Playhouse and their two sons: Michael, an architect and computer consultant, and Andrew, a musician and currently assistant to Pierre Boulez, IRCAM, Paris, France.

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, D.F.

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.

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

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

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