Bert Pumphrey (1916- ) California and Mexico Scene Painter

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Bert Pumphrey was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1916. He somehow managed to enter the Art Institute of Chicago at age fifteen; however, his career at the school was cut short when school authorities discovered his age and expelled him. Subsequently, he received a scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles. He had a one-man show at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in the late 1940s. He moved to Mexico soon afterwards, where he has lived and painted ever since. His subject matter is imaginative, not reproductive, and what he paints gives the feeling of Mexico --past and present -- although never identifying with any specific locale. Since moving to and working in Mexico, he has had nine major one-man shows there and, during the 1960s, had shows in the Virgin Islands and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

A Photograph of Bert Pumphrey, Taken While on Vacation in Spain during 2001/2002

His urban surrealist paintings are popular in Mexico and the colorful style is regaining popularity in the United States. A favorite theme of Pumphrey's is Hasidic Rabbis -- joyful, inquisitive, jumping, dancing, but always very dignified. He is also known for humorous, detailed, character studies of local area residents - some of them pompous, self-inportant, defiant, or melancholy, but always thought-provoking, and pleasing to the eye. He was represented by Cory Galleries-San Francisco, & Swanson Galleries-San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s. Cory Galleries also represented other artists, such as Leroy Neiman and Pascal Cucaro. In his May, 1969 solo exhibition at Cory Galleries, the entire collection of sixty-seven paintings was purchased within several hours of the opening by one collector. An artist with very definite ideas of his own, Pumphrey has almost entirely rejected the traditional square or rectangle as the basic shape for a painting. He prefers long, thin, verticals or horizontals. He rejects canvas, as well -- using masonite, on which he lays eight thin coats of white gesso. Then come the rich and vibrant colors through which the sharp edge of a palette knife may cut back to the white underpainting. To achieve sharpness of lines, he has designed his own knives. He also has turned from tradition in another way, in that he prefers to paint flat on a table, discarding the easel. NOTE: Bert Pumphrey had a twin brother named Joe, also an artist, who was especially noted for character portraits of women with large, dark eyes and long necks; also, the occasional portrait of children with large, sad eyes. If the viewer owns such a painting, odds are that it was painted by Joe, who died in 1972. Exhibitions: Solo Exhibit, Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1948; La Nueva Posada, Art Shows in the Garden, Lake Chapala, Mexico, 1955; Solo Exhibit, The Cory Galleries, 360 Geary St., San Francisco, May, 1969; The Cory Galleries, 360 Geary St., San Francisco, August, 1970; The Cory Galleries, Fisherman's Wharf, 377 Jefferson St., San Francisco, July, 1973; Swanson Galleries Ltd., San Francisco/Sausalito, 1974; Casa de la Cultura, Delegacion Municipal de Ajijic, Plaza Principal, Mexico, 1978; Galeria AXIXICC, Ajijic, Mexico, 1985