Gerrie Gutmann

Gerrie J. Gutmann, also known as Gerrie Current, Gerrie von Pribosic, Gerrie Bollas (1921–1969) was an American post-surrealist painter from California. The imagery in her paintings was fantasy and often overlapped with autobiographical themes, expressing her struggles for an identity as a woman, an artist, and a mother.

Early life and education She was born as Gerrie Current in 1921. She studied at the Stickney Memorial Art School in Pasadena in 1939 with painter Lorser Feitelson, a post-surrealist who painted in a more abstract hard-edged style. She was primarily a self taught artist. “er subscription to View and trips to Mexico and Europe...[helped to] familiarized herself with surrealist works.” The divorce caused a custody battle over their son, and in much of her work the imagery of childhood and loss are persistent.

“The work of Gutmann along with that of Dorr Bothwell, Eugene Berman and the Post-Surrealists are considered to belong to a broad sphere of illusionistic fantasy loosely termed magic realism. Those who look into her work find that she is more explicitly autobiographical and provided a release from the difficulties of her life- her abandonment by her father, the loss of her son, failed marriages, and alcoholism.

Gerrie Gutmann and John Gutmann divorced in May 1964.

Death and legacy Gutmann committed suicide in 1969, in her home on Sacramento Street in San Francisco. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has her painting, The Theft (1952) in their collection as gift from David and Jeanne Carlson of the Carlson Gallery.