GERSON LEIBER

BIOGRAPHY

Gerson Leiber was an American Abstract Expressionist painter, sculptor, and lithographer who maintained a studio in Springs, New York from 1956 until his death in 2018. Born in Brooklyn in 1921, Leiber began his artistic career during World War II while stationed in Budapest, Hungary. He studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Budapest and, after the war, took up printmaking and painting at the Art Students League of New York. He later studied engraving with Gabor Peterdi at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Leiber's influences, rooted in abstract expressionism, include Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Bonnard. In the words of Ruth Appelhof, director of Guild Hall in East Hampton, Gerson Leiber is "one of a pantheon of outstanding 20th Century artists who has explored styles, even movements, with the dexterity of a gifted, extremely self-confident person always expressing his own aesthetic at the core of his work."

Leiber has had dozens of solo exhibitions in the United States and Israel and his work is represented  in more than 50 museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, National Gallery of Art, Boston Museum of Fine Art and the Yale University Art Gallery, among many others. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the National Academy of Design's Benjamin Altman Prize for the Figure, The Ralph Fabri Medal of Merit, the Museum of Fine Arts Purchase Award and the President's Award.

Leiber died in April 2018, the same day as his beloved wife, Judith, the famed handbag designer. The works of Gerson and Judith Leiber remain on exhibition at the Leiber Collection Museum and Sculpture Garden in Springs.

SELECT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Yale Gallery of Art, New Haven, CT
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
The Library of Congress, Washington, DC
National Collection of American Art, Washington, DC
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Museum of FIne Arts, Boston, MA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY
New York Public Library, New York, NY
Malmo Museum, Sweden
Israel Museum, Israel
The New York Times, New York, NY

EDUCATION

Brooklyn Museum Art School
Art Students League of New York
Royal Academy of Art in Budapest

AWARDS

National Academy of Design's Benjamin Altman Prize for the Figure
The Ralph Fabri Medal of Merit
The Museum of Fine Arts Purchase Award
The President's Award

SELECT PRESS

Back To The Garden, Portray Magazine, August 8, 2020 
"The Seasons" is in full bloom at Nassau County Museum of Art, Newsday, December 17, 2019
New Nassau County Museum of Art Exhibition Highlights All Four Seasons, Long Island Weekly, December 8, 2019
The Leibers Are Gone. But Their Bling Is Back, The New York Times, May 25, 2018 
2 Holocaust Survivors Turn to Art to Reclaim Lost Lives, The New York Times, March 6, 2016
Local Artists Embrace The Audacity Of Abstraction, Sag Harbor Express, April 14, 2015
Gerson and Judith Leiber: Marriage of True Minds, Southampton Press
Colors of the Season, The New York Times, April 13, 2008
Gerson Leiber: A Major Retrospective Feature, SAGAzine, 2003
From the Studio, The East Hampton Star, 2002
Art Work by Gerson Leiber May 31, 1944 Dedicated to Isabella Leitner, 2002
Voyeurs in the Garden, Thorns in the Side, The New York Times, 2000
The World of Still Lifes and Landscapes, The New York Times, 1997