Gerry Bergstein

Gerry Bergstein has been widely considered one of the most influential painters in this region since the 1980s. Still, Bergstein’s penchant for producing eruptions of unexpected imagery is undiminished. His work teems with cascading figures plucked from art history and his own life. It’s a centuries-spanning reunion of Bergstein’s very extended family of relatives, friends, and figures he’s borrowed from the work of Jean-Leon Gerome, Rene Magritte, Max Beckmann, Vija Celmins, John Currin, Matt Groening and many, many others.

Cate McQuaid of The Boston Globe wrote in her 2013 article titled Plotting Painterly Fiction, "As ever, Bergstein is trying to figure out the universe, and it’s a massive, spinning, tricky place. He invokes great thinkers who have tackled life, the universe, art, and society, and suggests that nobody has quite put it all together yet."

McQuaid continued, "Theory and Practice utilizes old, peeled-off paint from his palette. It’s more sculpture than painting. Layers of old paint project from the bottom of the piece like a colorful trash heap. An old paint tube sticks out of it. Two small men work to shovel it up, as behind them unfolds a picture of a boy with his back to us, regarding blossoms as big as he is. Maybe this is a self-portrait: Bergstein is both the boy, awed by the world’s beauty, and the workmen, shoveling through the pretty, messy muck."

Bergstein’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, the Boston Public Library, and the Davis Museum in Wellesley, Massachusetts, among many others.

“I’m interested in the provisional, the contingent, the accidental as well as the planned. I’m an accident-prone control freak. I want to reflect my studio practice in which I often spend hours looking for things I’ve misplaced only to find them useless when I find them.” - Gerry Bergstein