An incredible photo-realist drypoint etching of a Native American man by Gilbert Adam Shoenbrod (American, 1903-1996), 1937. Titled "The Hunter", this hyper detailed portrait depicts the man at work on his craft.
Numbered "9/ED/50" (number 9 in an edition of 50)
Signature signed in pencil, lower right margin.
Created in 1937 (per date on other examples)
Framed and triple matted; off-white metal frame.
Shipped without glass. Image, 6"H x 8"W.
The artist was from Highland Park, IL and active in Pacific Grove, CA. He exhibited drypoints at the Chicago Society of Etchers and Brooklyn Society of Etchers exhibits in the 1930’s. The National Museum of American Art has 2 of his prints.
Studied drawing and biology at Stuyvesant High School, long recognized for technical and scientific excellence. The groundwork for meticulous detail and accuracy was laid at New York University in his studies of the microscopic structure of the cell. Attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, he left medical school to study painting and sculpture at Yale University. At 40, he returned to Columbia, but this time to the school of education where he earned a master's degree and taught. While at the University, he met an Arabian silversmith who became a close friend, enhancing Gilbert's interest in the eastern handicrafts. Under a master's instructions he acquired the ancient skills of metal craft and jewelry-making. In 1948 on a trip to the West Coast he discovered Carmel and in the following year moved to that haven of artists to open his own studio for handcrafted jewelry.
Biography form the Pacific Grove Tribune Wednesday, September 15, 1971.
Smithsonian Records Grovian’s Career by Iona Logie:
Against the blazing sunset of the matchless August evening, in Pacific Grove, a slight intensely blue-eyed man of slim and youthful stature stands erect on his balcony. His every line is a prayer and a paean to man’s longing for inner perfection. Since dawn, he has been engrossed in studio and workshops fronting the blue Pacific. His day is done at sundown; he will rise to greet the morning light-and set to work again.
The paintings, drawings and writings of this new artist on the national scene have been selected by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington to be preserved in microfilm in the archives of a dawning art in American painting and thought. The works of Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod ( Gilbert Adam) are now recognized as a well-defined clearing in the confusion of the day. They cut through the maze of man's own creating, to arrive at a basic framework of order, showing man's place and purpose in the viewers.
To many viewers, the Schoenbrod portraits of his fellow man whether drawings, paintings or etchings, brain brain to mind a complex of Rembrandt, William Blake, Kahlil Gibran, and Leonardo da Vinci. The faces, drawn from the depths of consciousness, over the soul of man to reveal in nakedness his dreams, his hopes, his fears, and his determination to find self truth, and goals of deepest meaning. With picture and word, the artist spreads out for viewing the anatomy of the whole, from cosmic beginning to present, and on into the future. He places the struggling in the now within the tide of progression, supplying the key of perspective for reevaluation and orientation in the seeming hopelessness of today's distracted way of life.
CHICAGO
This artist-resident of Pacific Grove was born in Chicago in 1903. His parents were from old Russia, and in his work he shows the depth and warmth of his Eastern heritage-- more especially in the etchings of scholars and ancients. His early childhood was spent in Texas as well as Chicago. Later in New York, he acquired the first useful skills in drawing at Stuyvesant High School, long recognized for technical and scientific excellence. The groundwork for meticulous detail and accuracy was laid at New York University in his studies of the microscopic structure of the cell.
In preparation for a career in medicine,Schoenbrod specialized in biological sciences, but also took time from studies to travel and explore the world of industry. He worked on a New England farm, put in night hours on the assembly line of a shingle factory.
For a time, he was an oiler of locomotives in the roundhouse of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. He shipped out as a seaman on coal boats plying the North Atlantic coast, and on freighters of South America. Everywhere he was soaking up memories of people, and of vastly different ways of life.
At the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, Schoenbrod entered upon medical studies, learning through dissection the intricacies of human anatomy. It was during this period that he realized his goal was to be in the wellness of man, not the illness. He sensed an imperative need to pursue the talent for drawing, and left medical school to study painting and sculpture at Yale University.
COLUMBIA
On holiday in New York City, Schonebrod met Florence Symonton, who became his wife and the mother of their two sons. One is now a hospital pathologists, the other works at present on the restoring of antiques. Meeting and hearing Mrs. Schoenbrod even now, one senses that she might well have been an actress or a coach in speech and drama; her diction and voice are music, her natural air and style dramatic, as might be expected from her Irish theatrical heritage.
In both New York and Chicago, Gilbert Schoenbrod was able to channel his artistic powers into 20 productive years of advertising design and illustration. At 40, he returned to Columbia, but this time to the school of education where he earned a master's degree and taught. While at the University, he met an Arabian silversmith who became a close friend, enhancing Gilbert's interest in the eastern handicrafts. Under a master's instructions he acquired the ancient skills of metalcraft and jewelry- making. In 1948 on a trip to the West Coast he discovered Carmel and in the following year moved to that haven of artists to open his own studio for handcrafted jewelry.
In the background was the constant thought that one day he would have something to say, and--when the time came—he hoped to have the skill to give it clear expression. The drawings accumulated in portfolios, for the most part unframed and unseen.
In the artist’s early 50s the urge to draw, and then to write, became a compulsion. He continued designed and make jewelry and become widely known for his skill and craftsmanship. But the jewelry weighed him down as the need for a deeper expression grew more intense. Inner pressures built up, and in 1956 the strain brought on a break of illness.
Intensive treatment and recovery, Schoenbrod feels, brought perspective and self-knowledge, the ultimate goal of the only effective therapy. He began to see the pattern of an entire life moving through preparation to fulfillment. His studies, his travels, his labors, his total experience as husband, father, teacher, artists and craftsmen, flowed into a channel toward an understanding and expression that would be his own unique contribution. He closed the Carmel jewelry studio, and with his wife retired -- first to his old studio in Connecticut, then to his present home overlooking the Pacific.
SMITHSONIAN
From 1957 to the present, he has been drawing, painting, writing. In April 1971 he gave his first one-man showing of work of the present period at the Saiset Museum and Gallery of the University of Santa Clara.
A book of his poems,”The Ecology of the Man Within,” related to the paintings on exhibition, was released in time for the show. It was then that the senior researcher of the Smithsonian Institute saw the artist work, and ask the curator to gather all available material related to schoenbrod’s life -- and send it to Washington.
Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod will reach his 70th year before long. He has searched for the elixir of a creative life. In his maturity he has found it and lived it. His work and his life are a unity. In his body is a vitality of youth. In his paintings there is a continuing flow of an age-old wisdom and the skills of a lifetime. In them there is a message for contemporary man. In an age so acutely in need of reconstructive ecology, the artist-author is now completing a timely book on food and exercise for the”Care of the Man Within.”
