Gunther Gerzso Wendland
Gunther Gerzso Wendland (born June 17, 1915 in Mexico City ; † April 21, 2000 there ) was a Mexican painter, screenwriter , production designer and costume designer .
Life
His father was a watchmaker from Budapest and his mother a German singer from Berlin , both of Jewish descent. His father died when he was six months old. His mother soon married a German emigrant, and the family briefly moved to Europe when the stepfather's jewelry store went bankrupt after the start of the Mexican Revolution . Back in Mexico, the mother divorced and sent her son to live with her brother, the art historian and collector Hans Wendland , who lives in Switzerland . There he came into contact with artists and the theater for the first time.
In the beginning he was interested in the design of sets and costumes for the theater. From 1935 to 1940 he worked for the Cleveland Playhouse in Ohio . During this time he started painting. He later worked for film producers such as Luis Buñuel and John Ford . In 1944 he met the surrealist painters Leonora Carrington and Wolfgang Paalen and joined their group of painters, including Remedios Varo .
Work and meaning
He became known in Mexico after his exhibitions: in 1950 in the Galería de Arte Mexicano and in 1963 for the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes . International exhibitions followed: 1965 in São Paulo , Brazil , 1970 in Phoenix , Arizona and 1981 in Paris .
Gerzso was awarded the Premio Nacional de Ciencia y Artes (National Prize for Science and Culture) in 1978. Octavio Paz called him one of the greatest Latin American painters.
His style is a combination of depicting pre-Columbian history or Mexican landscape and abstract painting in which one can also see a Cubist influence. In many of his paintings he used vivid colors, often blue, green and red tones on a dark, mostly black background. One can see a certain similarity in his use of geometric shapes with the works of Modigliani and Klee .
In 2000 he received the Mexican Ariel de Oro Film Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Filmography
- 1949: Cuatro contra el mundo (screenplay and set design)
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gerzso Wendland, Gunther |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Mexican painter, production designer and costume designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 17, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mexico city |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 21, 2000 |
| Place of death | Mexico city |