November 27, 2024 – February 15, 2025
Gerald Winter: A Life in Beads celebrates the artist’s luminescent beaded tapestries. Gerald Winter (1936-2023) worked in several different media throughout his career, including painting, sculpture, and serigraphs. However, it was his beadwork that became the cornerstone of Winter’s artistic practice. His process included working from scale drawings that he would translate to the loom bead by bead, resulting in rich whimsical compositions that emerge off their canvases.
This exhibition includes several themes and subjects that Winter explored throughout his life in beads. The tapestries are organized by subject matter ranging from meditations on historical artworks, to travelscapes, to more abstract compositions of varying patterns and textures.
Woven beadwork tapestries share a rich tradition in many Indigenous and Caribbean cultures. Winter’s interest in art history, and the history of visual storytelling are paramount in his approach to his work. The variation in his compositions denote an artist who reveled in experimentation.
Gerald Winter was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1936. He received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin in 1958. He was part of the faculty of the University Miami art department from 1965 to 2002. His work has been shown in several institutions including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; and a solo exhibition at the Lowe Art Museum in 1994. From 1965 until his death in 2023, Gerald Winter lived in Miami, FL with his wife Deborah Winter and family.
Image: Gerald Winter, Untitled (Belt Buckles), n.d. Glass beads and thread on canvas. Courtesy of the Estate of Gerald Winter
Gerald Winter: A Life in Beads was sponsored in part by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, with special thanks to Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs Director Emeritus Michael Spring; the City of Coral Gables; Beaux Arts Miami; the Lowe Advisory Council; and Lowe members. This show was made possible courtesy of the Gerald Winter Estate, Deborah Winter, Jose and Laura Escardo, and Julia Muench.
Copyright: 2024 University of Miami. All Rights Reserved.
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