Karl Zerbe

Karl Zerbe[1] (September 16, 1903 – November 24, 1972) was a German-born American painter.

The works of Karl Zerbe are significant because they record "the response of a distinguished artist of basically European sensibility to the physical and cultural scene of the New World".[2] Karl Zerbe was born in Berlin, Germany. The family lived in Paris, France from 1904–1914, where his father was an executive in an electrical supply concern. In 1914 they moved to Frankfurt, Germany where they lived until 1920. Karl Zerbe studied chemistry in 1920 at the Technische Hochschule, Friedberg. From 1921-1923 he lived in Munich, where he studied painting at the Debschitz School, mainly under Josef Eberz. From 1924-1926 Karl Zerbe worked and traveled in Italy on a fellowship from the City of Munich.[3] 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- 1955 Karl Zerbe was the head of the Department of Painting, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 1939 Karl Zerbe became a U.S. citizen and the same year for the first time he used encaustic. He died in Tallahassee, Florida.

He was grouped together with the Boston painters Kahlil Gibran, Jack Levine, and Hyman Bloom as a member of the Boston Expressionist school of painting.[4]

REFERENCES

Karl Zerbe

Jump up ^ Karl Zerbe by H.W. Janson, American Federation of Arts, New York

Jump up ^ Elke Lauterbach: Sieben Münchner Maler: Eine Ausstellungsgemeinschaft in der Zeit von 1931-1937 - Inhaltsverzeichnis und Einleitung [1]

Jump up ^ Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in America during the Twentieth Century,Karl Zerbe

Smithsonian Institution Research Information System; Archival, Manuscript and Photographic Collections, Karl Zerbe