GERHARDT LIEBMANN

Gerhardt Liebmann (b. 1928 – d. 1989) was born in Downey, California and grew up in rural Oregon. At the age of 18 Liebmann ran away from home to study architecture at Harvard University, under the founder of the Bauhaus School, Walter Gropius. After achieving a master’s degree in architecture at Harvard, Liebmann continued his studies in Europe, served in the United States Army and worked as a freelance architect. In 1968, Liebmann moved to SoHo, New York, marking a turning point in his career. At the time, SoHo was studded with warehouses and factories, whose vastness and rustic structures deeply inspired Liebmann.

While Liebmann’s oeuvre is incredibly varied, his drawings and paintings of SoHo rooftops are notable, through their dual exploration of landscape and architecture from a Surrealist perspective. During his years in SoHo, Liebmann discovered the beauty beneath its industrial squalor, the haunting yet touching nature of abandoned buildings, factories, parking lots and automobiles. As a trained architect, Liebmann adhered to his skills on perspective, and painted expanses of hard-edged shadows to create a sense of isolation atop the largely untouched rooftops of New York. Entirely purged of figures, his geometric drawings establish zones of being against a dystopian landscape. His work showcases his persistent fascination with the physical and psychological boundaries that humans erect between one another, especially in terms of the vast industrialization that was so present in his lifetime. Liebmann abstracted America to its fundamental structures of grids and scale, imbuing them with a profound sense of patience and stillness. While his explorations of space have received the most attention in recent years, Liebmann’s versatility as an artist is apparent in his eerie doll paintings (evoking Hans Bellmer), intimate paintings of nude men, as well as a series of portraits and landmarks commissioned by the Saudi royal family. He spent the last 6 years of his life in Saudi Arabia, where he discovered his affinity for the landscape and culture of the Middle East.

Liebmann’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions across the United States: Mitchell Algus, New York (2024); Westwood Gallery, New York (2023); Gertrude Stein, New York (1997); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (1983); Alexander Carlson Gallery, New York (1981); Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (1980); Brooks Jackson Gallery Iolas, New York (1978); O.K. Harris Gallery, New York (1971); Albright-Knox, Buffalo (1971); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1971); Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery, New York (1969); Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis (1969); National Academy of Design, New York (1965); Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (1965)