For Immediate Release

MEXICAN SURREALIST GUNTHER GERZSO TO BE HONORED WITH
MEMORIAL EXHIBITION AT MARY-ANNE MARTIN/FINE ART

OCTOBER 12 - NOVEMBER 11, 2000

New York, NY - Mexico's celebrated "abstract surrealist" painter, Gunther Gerzso (1915-2000), will be the focus of a memorial exhibition of 40 paintings and drawings at Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art from October 12 through November 11, 2000. Many of the works in the exhibition are from the prestigious collection of Jacques and Natasha Gelman, whose 20th century European paintings were recently bequeathed to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A complete color illustrated catalogue is available.

Gunther Gerzso, In His Memory will emphasize the artist's mature paintings from the 1950s and 60s, when many of his best-known works were produced. Rare examples from Gerzso's formative years in the late 30s and 40s will also be included. The artist's early artistic influences were European classicism and surrealism, the latter derived first-hand as André Breton, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Wolfgang Paalen and Benjamin Péret all arrived in Mexico in the early 1940's, when Gerzso was just beginning to paint. He was immediately taken into their circle, and before long he developed a sensuous personal abstract vocabulary, stemming from surrealism but inspired by pre-Columbian art and the archeology of Mexico.

In 1983, British scholar and author John Golding wrote in Gunther Gerzso and the Landscape of the Mind:
"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 challenge our preconceptions of perceived reality."
(Editions du Griffon, Neuchatel)

Many of the works in this show come from the extraordinary collection of Jacques and Natasha Gelman. Film producer Gelman was a close friend of the artist for 40 years, and for the first 20 years, Gerzso was closely associated with Gelman as set designer for hundreds of films produced by Gelman in Mexico. Gerzso also worked with Yves Allegret, John Ford and Luis Buñuel and it was during those years when he combed the country for film locations that he developed his passion for the landscape of Mexico. In 1961, Gerzso left the movies to devote himself full-time to painting. He returned to film design only once, when John Huston coaxed him out of retirement in 1983 for his production of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano (Universal 1984), insisting that Gunther Gerzso was the only man in Mexico capable of recreating the authentic ambience of Cuernavaca in 1939.

In addition to the Gelman collection, Gerzso's work is included in many important private and public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago (Gifts of Muriel Newman), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. His work is the subject of monographs by Dore Ashton (1995), Octavio Paz and John Golding (1983) and Luis Cardoza y Aragon (1972). A catalogue raisonné is now in preparation and the Santa Barbara (CA) Museum of Art is organizing a retrospective exhibition, Of Painting and Poetry: The Art of Gunther Gerzso, projected to open there in 2002 and travel to four venues in the United States and Europe, ending in Mexico City, 2003.

The Gerzso Estate is represented by Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art, which has held four Gerzso retrospective shows since 1982 and collaborated with the artist on numerous sculpture and graphics projects.

Exhibition dates: October 12 through November 11, 2000
Exhibition hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. - 5p.m.
Gallery Location: 23 East 73 Street NYC 10021
Preview online from Sept. 15: www.mamfa.com
Show catalogue online from Oct. 6, 2000
Color illus. catalogue available $20 ppd. (includes 1981 unpublished radio interview with artist)
Gallery Contacts: Sofia Lacayo or Mary-Anne Martin, Tel 212-288-2213 Fax 212-861-7656
Email: mamartin@mamfa.com