Statement
Quote from Risking the Abstract - Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunther Gerzso
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
When you try to look into one of my paintings, you'll always run into a wall that keeps you from going any further. It will stop you with the brilliance of its light, but at the back there's a black plane; its fear.
Gunther Gerzso to Rita Eder, in El esplendor de la muralla, 1994
The Ireland Collection: Forming the Vision
The Ireland Collection is a body of nearly 400 works from the most formative period in Gunther Gerzso's career. These early explorative pieces, brimming with possibilities, are a visual diary of the artist's thoughts, feelings and emotions. The collection contains the paintings, drawings, costume and set designs that Gerzso produced while working at the Cleveland Playhouse and during his summers in Mexico from 1935 to 1941.
Gunther Gerzso and Thomas Ireland began their lifelong friendship when Gerzso went to work at the Cleveland Playhouse as a set designer. Ireland and his wife Patricia, both actors at the Playhouse, took great interest in the talents of the young designer. As passionate devotees of the cultural arts, they befriended Gerzso and encouraged the on-going exploration of his artistic vision.
Thomasine Ireland Jacobs, Tom and Pat Ireland's daughter, recounts the relationship between her father and Gunther Gerzso:
“My father, who saved and preserved so many of the pieces, always held Gerzso's work and talent in high regard, and encouraged him in every way he could. Gerzso inscribed a number of the paintings to my mother and father, and painted a wonderful portrait of my father…These works, which covered the walls of our house, were such an important part of the environment of my childhood.”
Through their work at the Playhouse beginning in 1927, and their generous contributions to the theater, the Irelands became well known and respected in their community. A newspaper article from 1942 describes Tom Ireland: “Aside from a serious authority on the theater, [he's] a man with a personality who wins friends offstage as easily as he wins audiences on stage.”
