Gerome Kamrowski

"Holy Rollers" Gerome Kamrowski, 1940 Expressive Surrealist Composition

1940

Gerome Kamrowski was born in Warren, Minnesota, on January 19, 1914. In 1933 Kamrowski was awarded a scholarship to the Art Students League, where he would study in New York under Hans Hofmann. Kamrowski decided to remain in New York for a short time, to attend classes taught by George Grosz. After a few weeks, he returned to St. Paul, and found a position in the mural painting division of the Minnesota WPA. In 1937 Kamrowski went to Chicago to study under László Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Archipenko at the New Bauhaus. There he was exposed to new and interesting ideas regarding the role of nature in art and the "geometric basis of natural form". In 1938 Kamrowski received a Guggenheim fellowship to attend Hans Hofmann's summer school in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He then relocated to New York where he met William Baziotes. Together they shared a fascination in Surrealist automatic writing, and both artists explored its possibilities in their paintings. Kamrowski was particularly drawn to Surrealism's fundamental appeal of intuition over intellect. He was interested seeking a process that "binds all things together...a kind of cosmic rhythm". Throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s while living in New York, Kamrowski became an integral part of the emerging surrealists. In 1942, the artist Roberto Matta attempted to form a group of artists to investigate new applications for Surrealist methods. He invited Kamrowski, along with William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Peter Busa, and Robert Motherwell to join. No matter how short lived the collaboration was, this group was the kernel of the open-ended movement that was referred to as abstract surrealism and would over time prove to be the beginnings of abstract expressionism. It was during this time, the winter of 1939/1940, that an amazing collaboration was made. Kamrowski and two of his contemporaries, Baziotes and Pollock, came together and began to paint. This painting was a pivotal work, showing the transition from, and fusion of, Surrealism to Action Painting and Abstract Expressionism. In 1947, Kamrowski was invited to the Surrealist Exhibition in Paris by Surrealist leader André Breton. Breton said of him, "Of all the young painters whose evolution I have been able to follow in New York during the last years of the war, Kamrowski is the one who has impressed me far the most by reason of the "quality" and sustained character of his research." In the 1940s Kamrowski relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan in order to teach at the University of Michigan School of Art. It was a career that would span 38 years, and would encourage countless others to push their artistic boundaries. Teaching became a second passion. Over the years, Kamrowski's energy and drive never faltered, and his style continued to evolve dynamically from the abstract intellectual exercises of the past to colorful 3D pieces often made of glass, cement, and found objects. He worked every day and exhibited steadily in Michigan and elsewhere.