Throughout the primary stages of his artistic career, Gunther Gerzso searched for a focus and direction in his painting. His early works not only explored the human figurative form but also the possibilities of surrealism and cubism. The evolution of his works from figurative to abstract cubism is almost synonymous to that of Picasso. Gerzso's Nude with Boat, c. 1935-1941 exemplifies his careful analysis of composition and treatment of figures. His virtuoso use of line in this drawing emulates that of Picasso's neoclassical drawings however, Gerzso's narrative reached out to the imagination, especially with his addition of a fantastical boat.
In 1945, Gerzso was offered a job by Jacques Gelman to design sets for cinema, which he continued to do for the next 20 years, working on almost 150 films. This job certainly changed his paintings and turned the work towards the beginnings of an abstract period. Set design, which consisted of the idea of dissecting space and planes in order to create a story and depth, translated into rigid squares and geometric shapes that resembled cubism.
During Gerzso's mid career, he became interested in Pre-Columbian art. This influence allowed him to incorporate indigenous cultures of Mexico's monuments such as surface textures and bold mixes of colors into his works. Architectural structures such as that of Peru's Machu Picchu are incorporated into his works where figures begin to look as if they were cubist, constructed by bricks and stones, such as the figures found in Personages IV. In 1954, he took a trip to Greece where he started to paint highly constructed forms and flatly structured shapes in which he limited his palette to two or three variations of red, blue, black or gray.
The culmination of all of his stylistic influences up to this point are rendered and explored in Untitled, Personages IV, 1956. The artwork depicts two figures, a mother holding a child painterly rendered in an abstract cubist style. The use of color, coupled with the abstract figures, is reminiscent of both Willem De Kooning's Woman and Bicycle and Picasso's Mother and Child, 1921-22. The larger pale figure caresses the inner brightly colored one, holding it parallel compositionally. The dominant figure stretches out it's arm tenderly shaking a cubist doll to entertain the child. All of this is abstracted but carefully composed to anchor the work less in sentiment then in pretense. This is the birth of Gerzso's move into the abstract style which would grow, like the child, into what we now know is the future of contemporary Latin American Art.
Sin Título - Personages IV, 1956
oil on board, 25 x 22 inches
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