by valerie j mercer

Herbert Gentry was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. and grew up in Harlem. His mother, Teresa, a beautiful dancer, had been one of the few Black Ziegfeld showgirls and through her he met the artists, actors, and musicians who were her friends and colleagues. As a youngster he knew Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and even had a bit part in a play that featured the renowned thespian, Ethel Barrymore.[1] Gentry credits exposure to this creativity–and his mother in particular–with being the guiding influence behind his art.

He wanted to be an artist–he had begun to paint as a teenager–but the lack of opportunities for Blacks in the fine arts, and the financial hardship the life suggested, led him to an office job when he finished high school. Still, his interest in art persisted and between 1938 and 1939 he received art instruction through the WPA program. His mother had encouraged him to travel and he began to consider studying art in Paris.

Uncle Sam helped facilitate that dream. Gentry was drafted and from 1942 to 1945 served with the 90th Coastal Artillery/Anti-aircraft Regiment and travelled to Paris for the first time. He says: "I just fell in love with that city. And when I was discharged, I decided I wanted to go back to school in Paris."[2] 

Gentry was back in Paris by 1946, studying at L'École des Beaux-Arts. “It was very stiff,” he says, a result of its emphasis on tradition and he did not stay.[3] He enrolled instead at the L'Académie de Grande Chamière and spent the next three years taking drawing and painting classes and studying with the Russian-born sculptor Ossip Zadkine and the French painter Yves Brailler. This curriculum was flexible and students were encouraged to trust their perceptions and to be engaged by life. Many other American artists were enrolled at the time. During this time, Gentry complemented art classes with studies in political science at L'École des Hautes Études. 

Soon after his arrival he developed friendships with American artists: the sculptor Costa Alex, painter Herbie Katzman, and painter and sculptor, Lawson Mooney. They were among the first wave of Americans to live in post-World War II Paris aided by the G.I. Bill. They lived at the Cité Universitaire at Boulevard Jourdan and constantly rebelled against its rules which they felt were too controlling.[4] They worked hard, frequented the Louvre, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and Musée de l'Homme, the last was famous for its African art collection. For contemporary art, they visited both left and right bank galleries. 

Gentry and his friends enjoyed hanging out at the cafes and bars in Montparnasse. They were among the new generation of foreign artists who, finding it difficult to penetrate the French art world, created their own community in Montparnasse. 

In 1948, Gentry and his American bride, Honey Johnson, opened "Chez Honey," a nightspot and gallery on rue Jules-Chaplain in Montparnasse. The club showcased Honey's talent as a singer as well as the work of American artists in Paris. Chez Honey, was popular among jazz musicians, artists, and writers, but closed after a year-and-a-half. 

By 1949, Gentry was teaching at L'Académie de la Grande Chaumière. It was an important year. He also had his first solo Parisian exhibition at Galerie Seine, a rare event for American artists in those days. 

The following year his work was presented at Galerie Huit, the American artists' cooperative exhibition space. There are no extant paintings from the late 40s, but Gentry describes his early style as expressionist. His subjects were the human figure, as well as street and landscape scenes of Paris and its environs. 

When Romare Bearden arrived from New York in 1950, he and Gentry met and the latter introduced him to his circle of friends. By now Gentry had encountered several masters of the School of Paris. Two of these artists were Alberto Giacometti and Constantin Brancusi. Gentry had met Georges Braque from whom he learned a great deal about space. He associated with several Northern European artists particularly Asger Jorn, Cornelis Guillaume Van Beverloo, called Corneille, and Karel Appel-members of the influential CoBrA group. 

The name CoBrA was derived from the first letters of the home cities of the group's founding members which were Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Gentry's art, through his eventual preference for using intense colors to spontaneously render ideas from his subconscious, would come to reflect his affinity with the artistic concerns of the CoBrA artists. He also enjoyed friendships with Sikoto, a South African painter, and the Brazilian sculptor Tiberio. 

Gentry returned to New York shortly after a solo exhibition at Galerie Hamlin in 1951. Two years later he booked sail for a return trip to Paris and met the artist Beauford Delaney on board. They had been introduced in New York by Delaney's brother, Joseph. 

Once back in Paris, and no longer eligible for G.I. benefits, Gentry was struggling to survive. He met Ed Clark and they shared a studio. His economic difficulties were relieved in 1954 when the United States and Allied Armed Forces asked him to co-produce variety shows. He did so for a year-and-a-half. 

The expressionist tendencies of Gentry's early works are still apparent in the paintings done in the late 50s. But now, the active brushwork, distortion of form, and loose drawing that once characterized his treatment of traditional subjects are used to realize ideas and create imagery derived from the subconscious. This reliance on the subconscious was a tenet of Surrealism, initially a literary movement organized in the late 1920s, which was influenced by Sigmund Freud's theories. Art related to the movement often displayed fantastic and dream-world imagery. The CoBrA artists Jorn, Appel, and Corneille had been connected previously to the Surrealists and they continued to be influenced by several of its tenets. The Claw (Fig. 14) dating from 1958 is an example of Gentry's handling of an idea not consciously calculated. In the painting, the head and shoulders of a large black cat dominate the left-hand side of the composition, while its tail dominates the right-hand side and recedes into the ambiguous space of the background. Behind the cat there is a face with mostly indecipherable features, except for a pair of eyes that are obviously fixed on the animal. The blue and white paw with large claws referred to in the ride and extended across the lower part of the picture belongs to this creature with the eyes. The cat's reaction to this extended paw is aloofness. The meaning of the painting is open to conjecture, although the claws suggest something to do with the threat of violence. The artist says his friends have given it various political interpretations.[5]