GERDTS, William H. 1929-

PERSONAL: Born January 18, 1929, in New York, NY; son of William H. (a business executive) and Suzanne (Zonowick) Gerdts; divorced; children: Jeffrey. Education: Amherst College, B.A., 1949; Harvard University, M.A., 1950, graduate study, 1950-53.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Newark Museum, 43 Washington St., Newark, NJ 07109.

CAREER: Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, Norfolk, VA, curator, 1943-54; Newark Museum, Newark, NJ, curator of painting and sculpture, 1954—. City University of New York, professor emeritus of art history; lecturer on American art at colleges and museums throughout the country; teacher of adult education courses related to art.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Kappa.

WRITINGS:

Drawings of Joseph Stella, Rabin & Krueger Gallery (Newark, NJ), 1962.

Thomas Moran, 1837-1926, University of California (Berkeley, CA), 1963.

Painting and Sculpture in New Jersey, Van Nostrand (New York, NY), 1964.

A Century of American Still-Life Painting, 1813-1913, American Federation of Arts (New York, NY), 1966.

American Still-Life Painting, 1913-1967, American Federation of Arts (New York, NY), 1967.

(With Howard Merritt) Studies on Thomas Cole, an American Romanticist: Annual II, Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD), 1968.

(With Russell Burke) American Still-Life Painting, Praeger (New York, NY), 1971.

American Neo-Classic Sculpture: The Marble Resurrection, Viking (New York, NY), 1973.

The Great American Nude: A History in Art, Praeger (New York, NY), 1974.

Revealed Masters: Nineteenth-Century American Art, American Federation of Arts (New York, NY), 1974.

Three Centuries of the American Nude, New York Cultural Center (New York, NY), 1975.

(With Theodore E. Stebbens, Jr.) A Man of Genius: The Art of Washington Allston (1779-1843), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), 1979.

American Impressionism, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington (Seattle, WA), 1980.

Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, 1801-1939, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 1981.

William Holbrook Beard: Animals in Fantasy; Essay, Alexander Gallery, 1981.

Down Garden Paths: The Floral Environment in American Art, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (East Brunswick, NJ), 1983.

American Impressionism, 1984, 2nd edition, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Linda S. Ferber) The New Path: Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites, Schocken Books (New York, NY), 1985.

(Compiler, with James L. Yarnall and others) The National Museum of American Art's Index to American Art Exhibition Catalogues: From the Beginning through the 1876 Centennial Year, six volumes, G. K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1986.

The Art of Henry Inman, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC), 1987.

(With Mark Thistlethwaite) Grand Illusions: History Painting in America (lectures), Amon Carter Museum (Fort Worth, TX), 1988.

Art across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting, 1710-1920, three volumes, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Masterworks of American Impressionism from the Pfeil Collection, Art Services International (Alexandria, VA), 1992.

Monet's Giverny: An Impressionist Colony, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Impressionist New York, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 1994.

William Glackens, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(With M. Elizabeth Boone and Wendy Greenhouse) Mathias J. Alten: Journey of an American Painter (essays), Grand Rapids Art Museum (Grand Rapids, MI), 1998.

(With Will South) California Impressionism, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Warren Adelson and Jay Cantor) Childe Hassam, Impressionist, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Alice Schille, Hudson Hills Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Also author, coauthor, and editor of exhibition catalogs, including "Women Artists of America, 1707-1964," Newark Museum (Newark, NJ), 1965; "The Art of Healing: Medicine and Science in American Art," Birmingham Museum of Art, 1981; "Indiana Influence: The Golden Age of Indiana Landscape Painting, Indiana's Modern Legacy," Fort Wayne Museum of Art (Fort Wayne, IN), 1984; "In Nature's Ways: American Landscape Painting of the Late Nineteenth Century," West Palm Beach Gallery (West Palm Beach, FL), 1987; "At the Water's Edge: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century American Beach Scenes," Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa, FL), 1989; "California Light, 1900-1930," Laguna Art Museum (Laguna Beach, CA), 1990; "American Impressionism: Masterworks from Public and Private Collections in the United States," Eidolon (Einsiedeln, Switzerland), 1990; "Theodore Clement Steele: An American Master of Light," Chameleon Books (New York, NY), 1995; "Complementary Visions of Louisiana Art: The Laura Simon Nelson Collection," Historic New Orleans Collection (New Orleans, LA), 1996; "A Painter's Paradise: Artists and the California Landscape," Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Santa Barbara, CA), 1996; "The Color of Modernism: The American Fauves," Hollis Taggart Galleries (New York, NY), 1997; "Natural Habitat: Contemporary Wildlife Artists of North America," Spanierman Gallery (New York, NY), 1998; "The World of Theodore Wores," Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University (Stanford, CA), 1999; and "The Friedman Collection: Artists of Chicago," Spanierman Gallery (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to books, including American Portraiture in the Grand Manner, 1720-1920, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA), 1981; Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865-1915, Terra Foundation for the Arts (Evanston, IL), 1992; A Marble Quarry: The James H. Ricau Collection of Sculpture at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Hudson Hills Press (New York, NY), 1997; and Direct from Nature: The Oil Sketches of Thomas Hill, Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA), 1997. Contributor to magazines, including Antiques and Art Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS: William H. Gerdts speaks French and German and is studying Egyptian hieroglyphics and Arabic. He visits Europe annually to study art collections and monuments.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

AB Bookman's Weekly, March 25, 1991, review of Art across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting, 1710-1920, p. 1148.

Americana, March-April, 1985, Geoffrey C. Ward, review of American Impressionism, p. 26.

American Historical Review, February, 1990, David Bjelajac, review of Grand Illusions: History Painting in America, p. 256.

Antiques, February, 1984, review of Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, 1801-1939, p. 476; January, 1997, review of "Theodore Clement Steele: An American Master of Light," p. 28.

Art Journal, summer, 1992, Wanda M. Corn, review of Art across America, p. 101.

ARTnews, December, 1984, Andrew Washton, review of American Impressionism, p. 27; April, 1992, review of Art across America, p. 67.

Atlantic, January, 1991, Phoebe-Lou Adams, review of Art across America, p. 110.

Bloomsbury Review, July, 1999, review of California Impressionism, p. 17.

Booklist, December 1, 1984, review of American Impressionism, p. 472; December 1, 1990, review of Art across America, p. 706; September 1, 1996, Donna Seaman, review of William Glackens, p. 53; August, 2001, Donna Seaman, review of Alice Schille, p. 2071.

Bookwatch, July, 1998, review of California Impressionism, p. 10; July, 2001, review of Alice Schille, p. 8.

Book World, December 2, 1984, review of American Impressionism, p. 7; December 2, 1990, review of Art across America, p. 11.

Choice, April, 1982, review of Painters of the Humble Truth, p. 1056; July, 1984, review of Down Garden Paths: The Floral Environment in American Art, p. 1597; January, 1985, review of American Impressionism, p. 671; December, 1988, review of Grand Illusions, p. 636; January, 1991, review of Art across America, p. 756; October, 1991, review of Masterworks of American Impressionism from the Pfeil Collection, p. 270; March, 1994, L. R. Matteson, review of Monet's Giverny: An Impressionist Colony, p. 1114; February, 1997, review of William Glackens, p. 955; November, 2001, I. Spalatin, review of Alice Schille, p. 498.

Georgia Review, spring, 1981, review of A Man of Genius: The Art of Washington Allston (1779-1843), p. 195.

House and Garden, December, 1984, Francis Haskell, review of American Impressionism, p. 68; September, 1990, Catherine Barnett, review of Art across America, p. 60.

Journal of American History, September, 1989, Lillian B. Miller, review of Grand Illusions, p. 591.

Library Journal, November 15, 1984, Gloria K. Rensch, review of American Impressionism, p. 2143; January, 1985, review of American Impressionism, p. 50; September 15, 1990, review of Art across America, p. 56; December, 1990, Jack Perry Brown, review of Art across America, p. 124; December, 1993, review of Monet's Giverny, p. 120; August, 1996, Martin R. Kalfatovic, review of William Glackens, p. 67; January, 2002, Eric Linderman, review of American Impressionism, p. 94.

Los Angeles Times, December 23, 1984, Suzanne Muchnic, review of American Impressionism, p. B5.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, December 23, 1984, review of American Impressionism, p. 5; November 25, 1990, review of Art across America, p. 2.

MLN, December, 1987, Elaine L. Kreizman, review of The New Path: Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites, p. 1233.

Nation, June 8, 1985, Arthur C. Danto, review of The New Path, p. 714.

Newsweek, December 10, 1990, review of Art across America, p. 82.

Publishers Weekly, October 19, 1984, review of American Impressionism, p. 35; September 27, 1993, review of Monet's Giverny, p. 57; May 27, 1996, review of William Glackens, p. 58; August 27, 2001, review of Alice Schille, p. 74.

Reference and Research Book News, November, 1998, review of California Impressionism, p. 180.

Reviews in American History, June, 1989, Karal Ann Marling, review of Grand Illusions, p. 210.

Southwest Review, autumn, 1988, review of Grand Illusions, p. 556.

Time, December 17, 1990, review of Art across America, p. 87.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), December 2, 1990, review of Art across America, p. 10.

Wall Street Journal, December 4, 1990, review of Art across America, p. A16.*