THE GROWTH OF A PICTURE
An exhibi~ion in honor of ~he inau uration of Rober~ M. Strozier Presiden~ of ~he FIori a ~a~e Universi~y February 21, 1958 Born in Berlin in 1903, Karl Zerbe was reared and educated in Paris until the eve of World War I when the family moved to Frankfurt. By 1920 he was living in Munich where he studied painting under Joseph Eberz and Karl Casper, a follower of the Norwegian ex pressionist, Edvard Munch. Eberz, the more spectacular of Mr. Zerbe's two masters exerted the greater influence on him. In 1922, when Zerbe was 19 years old, he had his first one-man exhibition in Berlin. With Munich as his headquarters Mr. Zerbe spent much time in France from 1925 until 1933 when he came to America. In 1935 he was appointed to the faculty of the Fine Arts Guild in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two years later in 1937 he became head of the Department of Drawing and Painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, a po sition he held until his appointment as Professor of Painting at the Florida State University in 1955. Today in addition to being represented in Museum collections throughout the country, works of Mr. Zerbe are owned by twenty universities and colleges in America. GOOD ANGEL TEN ANTED
The original idea for Good Angel Tenanted was a purely technical one which came to Mr. Zerbe during the summer of 1957. At that time, while using a considerable amount of gold in his work, he conceived the idea of doing an Angel in gold.
1. D ARK ANGEL - Dark Angel, a preliminary study, is little more than the first setting down of the idea of the Gilded Angel.
2 GILDED ANGEL - This work is a further development 0 f the original conception. After completion of Dark Angel the artist has satisfied his original purely technical inspiration of doing an angel in gold.
3. DOUBLE ANGEL - In study number three we see complexity developing in the painting as a result of philosophical as well as technical inspiration. Resulting from a social gathering of members of the University faculty at which the discussion arose concerning the conflict between good and bad, Mr. Zerbe was further inspired with the idea of the good and the bad in good. This conflict is first indicated herewith in the angel with two faces.
4. FINAL STUDY FOR GOOD ANGEL TENANTED-In this study the artist is concerned primarily with the coloristic aspect of the painting using seemingly incongruous hues to further em phasize the conflict between good and bad.
5. RESTUDY OF 'TIlE DRAWING- The element of drawing is rela tively consistent throughout all six studies with the exceptions of slight modifications in positions of head and body.
6. GOOD ANGEL TENANTED-To further emphasize the elements of conflict the patterns have become more complicated and the palette more violent through the use of red, blue, blue-green and green. .