Ilse Getz (1917 – 1992)

Lady with White Bird, 1976, mixed media construction on wood panel, signed, dated, and titled verso, exhibited Ilse Getz Paintings, Collages, Constructions, Neuberger Museum, State University of New York College at Purchase, Purchase NY, March 12 – April 15, 1978, and Kunsthalle Nuremberg am Marientor, Nuremberg, Germany, May 19 – August 13, 1978, no. 73 (illustrated in the accompanying catalog, p. 73)

$8500

Created just two years prior to Ilse Getz Paintings, Collages, Constructions, a sixty-piece solo exhibition at the Neuberger Museum and Kunsthalle Nuremberg am Marientor, Lady with White Bird comes from one of the most important periods of Getz’ practice. It explores core themes and imagery which had been developed over many years. The catalog for the exhibition explained, “Woman is again a dominant theme . . . often appearing in the form of post-card reproductions of fifteenth and sixteenth century paintings. Another theme is . . . the bird. . . The new synthesis found in the current work represents the culmination of two decades in which she has worked concurrently, but usually until now rather independently, in different media. The first work in three dimensions – boxes and assemblages, collages in the round – grew naturally from the discovering and collecting materials which were often kept for several years until they eventually ‘found’ themselves together. Ilse Getz' initial involvement with boxes and dolls, eggs, birds, clocks, toys and games and other objects was first of all poetic and symbolic, and fed by the intense memories of her Bavarian childhood – memories of baroque altars, gothic architecture, fantastic dolls and toys, medieval torture chambers and the ‘Iron Virgin’ in the castle of Nuremberg; memories of the strange and beautiful dolls she was given as a little girl and which insatiable curiosity always compelled her to pull apart; memories of the bird she found and nurtured on a holiday one summer only to be prevented from taking it home with her to the city.”

Memory, loss and longing were significant elements in Getz’ biography. Born in Nuremberg into a German Jewish family, the Getzs struggled with the rise of Nazism and the suicide of the family patriarch. Getz moved to Hamburg to live with an older sister before both young women left for Italy, Spain and then Mexico after Hitler’s rise to power. From Mexico, Getz immigrated to the United States with dreams of studying dance with Martha Graham. She lived in Pennsylvania and New York, all the while hoping to return to Europe. With the advent of World War II and the birth of a child, Getz stayed in New York and traveled to Mexico where she painted daily and decided to dedicate her life to being an artist. In 1943, she returned to New York and studied at the Art Students League with George Grosz and Morris Kantor. With the help of Peggy Guggenheim, Getz had her first solo exhibition at Norlyst Gallery in New York in 1945. For the following four decades, Getz consistently exhibited, including in 1951 at the Guild Hall in Easthampton where her work shared a wall with Jackson Pollock. She was included in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, White Museum (Cornell University), Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art, Albright Knox Art Museum, Philadelphia Art Museum, and dozens of other public institutions. Solo exhibitions were hosted at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Williams College Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Phoenix, and the Hopkins Center (Dartmouth College). Getz is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and other standard references.