Jerry Gretzinger

Jerry Gretzinger (born 1942 ) is an American folk artist and fashion designer. He is best known for his map of an invented landscape known simply as "Jerry's map". Gretzinger has been working on his map for over 60 years; it has grown to include over 4,000 unique panels and is constantly evolving. Jerry's map has been shown at numerous international museums including the Palais de Tokyo, MASS MoCA, and the American Folk Art Museum. Early life Gretzinger was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In school, he earned a National Merit Scholarship. Throughout childhood, Gretzinger collected oil company maps and would pore over these maps and the family's encyclopedia.

Career Gretzinger attended the University of Michigan where he enrolled in the College of Architecture & Design. While living in Ann Arbor following his junior year, he was working at a ball bearing factory. During breaks in his work, Gretzinger began to sketch a map on a sheet of paper and when his drawing reached the edge of the page he continued onto the next sheet. These were the first panels of what would become "Jerry's map".

Gretzinger transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he continued his studies. During his first fall in San Francisco, Gretzinger applied and was accepted into the Peace Corps. In 1964, he completed training and moved to Tunisia for his service. In 1966, Gretzinger returned to the University of Michigan and completed his studies there. In 1968, he returned to Tunisia as the architect for the archeological project The Corpus of the Ancient Mosaics of Tunisia.

Gretzinger left North Africa to move to New York City in 1971 where he set himself to start a new career. He says, "I knew that I wanted to make things, make a living from what I made, and that's what I devoted myself to."

In 2003, Gretzinger's son Hank discovered the map which had been archived in their Cold Spring attic and very soon Gretzinger began work on the map again in earnest. In 2009, he had his first show of the map at the Garrison Art Center in Cold Spring with an accompanying video documentary produced by independent filmmaker Greg Whitmore.

Selected exhibitions Gretzinger's work has been included in group (G) and solo (S) exhibitions around the world.