Artistic Timeline

1919

On July 17 the artist was born in Pittsburgh, PA.

1925-1942

Family moves to Harlem in New York City, where Gentry spends his childhood and youth. Exposed to theater, dance, and music in Harlem and on Broadway through his mother.

1942-1945

Military Service in World War II. Serves in North Africa, Corsica, France, Austria. Stationed outside Paris.

1946-1949

Returns to Paris with the GI Bill. Opens Chez Honey, a club-galerie.

1950-58

Paris based. Figurative-based abstraction. Light and bright, multi-colored. Small group of surviving works includes The Claw.

1959-1962

Copenhagen based with Paris studio. Abstractions consist of gestural explosion of marks. Transition from light color to earth color and white. Limited range of color in each painting, ground of painting often exposed. Paintings include He Seeth All.

1963-1966

Gothenburg based with Paris studio. Figurative intent re-emerges as gestural marks become transparent washes and calligraphic lines. Dark colors, blacks, greens, rusts and browns. Closely valued, nearly mono-chromatic. Color opposites used as gestural highlights. Paintings include Blue Blue Blue, 

1966-1971

Stockholm based with Paris studio. Distinct figurative subjects. Dark, murky colors. Gestures, lines are abrupt and harsh. Light emerges from background. Paintings include Interior Man, Autour de Moi II, Panther/Tiger, Man’s Web, Rotating Earth II, Red Africa Earth.

1972-1975

Stockholm based: Year-long residence in New York City, Nordic colors. Figuration themes solidify, imagery dominated by heads, faces and eyes. Alien appearance. Colors lighten and glow, use of white and transparent hues, some large scale paintings. Arabesque lines and dance emerges as theme. Begins significant graphic series in Hagfeldt’s silk screen studio in Stockholm. Paintings include Actual. 

1975-1978 

Rotating bases: Stockholm, Paris and New York. Work in lithography at Michel Casse, Paris. New silk screen suite in Stockholm. Collaboration with Swedish tapestry artist. Paintings become smaller scale, while more vibrant in color. Uses acrylic paint more frequently. Begins works in Monoprint at Bob Blackburns Printmaking workshop in New York. Paintings include The Same Crowd, Les Deux, Mobility

1978-1980 

Paris based. Begins works on unstretched, unprimed linen canvases and cotton canvases in acrylic. Works in oils on paper. Palette shifts to primaries and secondaries. Paintings include Spiritually Green, In the Garden Again, Association

1980-1989 

Malmö and New York based. More large-scale work, acrylic on linen and on primed canvas. Development of subject matter through large series of paintings on paper and monoprints. Works in silkscreen at Atelje Arte in Malmö and etchings with Bob Blackburn. Color is strong: contrasting secondary and primary colors. Figures become more human. Mythological, classical themes emerge amidst the non-Western and ancient art references. Paintings include On The Scale/ Scale, And; The Couple; Not Alone II;  Blue Garden; You, I And the Flower; All of Us; Interruption; Presentation, Prepared for the Ritual, La Famille de; Rounded Friendship.

1990-1996

New York based, Malmö studio. Begins exhibiting at G.R. N'Namdi Gallery, Birmingham, Ml. Style consolidates but figures begin to break apart and fragment. Heads and faces appear as scattered and stacked totems or as enlarged close-ups. Paint strokes begin to appear densely woven. White used more frequently as color and as contrast to secondary color. Works with silkscreen on plexi-glass at Lime Grafik in Malmö. Attends African American Paris conferences at Sorbonne. Paintings include: The Tree, Together II, Les ldées Differentes, He is the Head, Parts, Yes I like You, The Gaze, Heads Above, and Snow. 

1997 -2000

New York based, Malmo studio. Figures further abstracted as densely packed gestures. Exploration in the City of Lights exhibition at Studio Museum in Harlem. Travels to openings in New Orleans and Milwaukee with Ed Clark. Has exhibitions in Detroit and Chicago with G.R. N'Namdi Gallery. Exhibits in the United States. Paintings from summers in Malmö include: Befriended, Celebration, Faith, and Our Desires. 

2000-2003

Artist in residence at Teachers College, Columbia University in Feb-June 2000, where he completes his final paintings, Eyes Opened, Among Others and With Friends. Suffers stroke at summer’s end. Remains in Sweden. Herbert Gentry dies in Stockholm, September 8, 2003. He was 84.