Harold Garde

Harold Garde (June 7, 1923 – October 11, 2022) was an American abstract expressionist painter and the originator and namer of the Strappo technique.

Early life and education Garde was born on June 7, 1923, in New York City, to immigrant Eastern European Jewish parents. After graduating from Stuyvesant High School, he attended City College of New York for three years, where he majored in science. Before completing his undergraduate studies, he joined the United States Air Force, serving in the Philippines and in World War II from 1943 to 1945. Post-war, he switched his focus and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where he studied under surrealist Leon Kelly, abstract expressionist George McNeil and geometric abstractionist Ilya Bolotowsky. He earned a master's degree in fine arts and art education from Columbia University in New York in 1951.

Career

Teaching After graduating from Columbia, Garde worked for 15 years in New York City's commercial interior design industry. In 1968, now married with four children, he began teaching art at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, and at a secondary school in Port Washington, New York, while continuing to paint professionally. In an effort to produce art full-time, Garde retired from teaching in 1984.

Painting Abstract expressionist art mixed with surrealist and figurative elements defined Garde's early work. Some of his paintings focus on a sequence of letters or numbers.

Garde had his first solo exhibition in 1970 in Huntington, New York. Garde's work is on display as part of the permanent collections of the Portland Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, New Mexico Museum of Art, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Museum of Florida Art, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, among others.

Strappo printmaking In the mid-1980s, Garde invented, developed, and named Strappo printmaking, an artistic technique combining painting and printmaking that he taught in workshops nationwide. Garde split his time between his art studios in Maine and Florida.

Garde died in Florida on October 11, 2022, at the age of 99.

Exhibitions (selected) Baiter Gallery, Huntington, NY, 1970 Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY, 1971–72 Linden Gallery, New York, NY, 1982 Deicas Gallery, La Jolla, CA, 1983 Palm Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 1984 ACW Gallery, San Diego, CA, 1985 Instituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 1985 Sena Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, 1985 Theodore F. Wolff, curator, On the Edge: Forty Years of Maine Painting 1952-1992, included in exhibition and accompanying book Recent Studio Selections, Nassau County Firehouse Gallery, Garden City, NY, 2000 Mulford Gallery, Rockland, ME, 2009 90 90 90, Harbor Square Gallery, Rockland, ME, 2013 Harold Garde: Masterworks, Jai Gallery, Orlando, FL, 2014 Mid-Century to This Century, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, 2015 Last of the Game Changers, HENAO Contemporary Center, Orlando, FL, 2016 Harold Garde: Ab-Ex to Neo-Expressionism, Artlery 160 Gallery, Boston, MA, 2017-18 New Works, ArtSuite Gallery, Piermont, NY, 2018 Never Too Late, Center for the Arts, Mount Dora, FL, 2019 Some Reliable Truths About Chairs, Union of Maine Visual Artists Gallery, Portland, ME, 2019 Burn This Down: Reflections on the Art World, Mills Gallery, Orlando, FL, 2019 When There Was Another Me, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME, 2019

Filmography Garde was the subject of a 30-minute film about his life and art as part of the Union of Maine Visual Arts' nine-film series Maine Masters. He was also the subject of the hour-long film Harold Garde, Working Artist, directed by Dale Schierholt, about his life and work. The latter premiered at the Museum of Florida Art in 2009, presented in conjunction with the museum's retrospective touring exhibit, Harold Garde. Painting. 50 Years. In 2015, Harold Garde: Art & Spirit, a 60-minute documentary, was a Selection of the Newport Film Festival, among other festivals, and has had numerous showings, including the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in conjunction with the Strand Theatre and Farnsworth Art Museum and Maine Public Television.