Gert Marcus
Swedish artist (1914–2008)
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Key Takeaways
- Gert Olof Marcus (1914–2008) was a German-born Swedish painter and sculptor.
- Marcus’ father was a German Jewish lawyer named Paul Marcus and his mother, Hilda Maria Dahl, was Swedish.
- With the rise of Nazism, the family had to flee Germany in 1933.
- In 1939, he moved to Los Angeles and took his mother's maiden name, Dahl.
- Apart from a few months studying at the Otte Skölds målarskola (1936–37) (now Pernby School of Painting) in Stockholm and some months at the Ateneum School in Helsinki, Finland (1937–1938), Gert Marcus was an autodidact.
Gert Olof Marcus (1914–2008) was a German-born Swedish painter and sculptor.
Background and early life
He was born 10 November 1914 in the Groß Borstel district of Hamburg, Germany. Marcus’ father was a German Jewish lawyer named Paul Marcus and his mother, Hilda Maria Dahl, was Swedish. The couple had four children: Ingolf, Gert, Holger, and Anna Britta. With the rise of Nazism, the family had to flee Germany in 1933. Ingolf, who was at that time a young pianist, had already moved to Zurich, where he later began a career as a conductor and composer. In 1939, he moved to Los Angeles and took his mother's maiden name, Dahl. Gert Marcus and his brother Holger moved to Sweden in 1933; other family members joined them there.
Apart from a few months studying at the Otte Skölds målarskola (1936–37) (now Pernby School of Painting) in Stockholm and some months at the Ateneum School in Helsinki, Finland (1937–1938), Gert Marcus was an autodidact. He became one of Sweden's most consistent concretists, even if he distanced himself from all "isms". Marcus lived most of his life in Stockholm but he worked for long periods in France in Menton, L’Esconil (Brittany) and Paris, and in Italy at Massa-Carrara.
Early in his life he was influenced by Paul Cézanne's attempts in determining how to create space and volume without the use of Renaissance perspective. This led to Marcus’ creating a color theory – which he was faithful to during his entire artistic career. Work on volume and color opened for him a road to bas-reliefs and eventually to sculpture. In 1955 he met the artists Michel Seuphor, Nicolas Schöffer, and Georges Vantongerloo in Paris. With the last, Marcus developed a long and profitable friendship.
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