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| View other artists in: Painting | Sculpture | Works on Paper |
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| (1926-) |
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Medium/Discipline: Painting, Sculpture, Works on Paper
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland Affiliation: Born here, Active while in residence
Prominent Theme: Figural; Children; Adults; Animals
Style/Period: Surrealism; Expressionism
Gender: Female
Race/Ethnicity: White
Biography: Known best for her treatment of surreal subjects and sumptuous color in her paintings, Joan Erbe has been called, "The Grand Duchess of Baltimore Painters" (Rebecca Hoffberger quoted in Ned Oldham, "The Bird," Baltimore Magazine, December 2001, p. 120.) In the early days of her success, Joan Erbe showed frequently at I. F. A. Gallery in Washington, D.C., for the first time in 1959. On occasion of her second show there in 1960, art critic Leslie Judd Ahlander of the Washington Post wrote, "...one of the area's most talented artists, Miss Erbe's paintings stem from Bosch, Brueghel, and the Goya of the 'Caprichos.' Often macabre and shocking, the subjects reveal such a feeling for the surreal and irrational that it is hard to believe they are by so young an artist. She is able to project evil and irrationality with a hair-raising economy of means. The color passages, with a gemlike brilliance of tone, are a delight to the eye. This is work of real power." (Cited in Recent Paintings by Joan Erbe, Exhibition Brochure, I. F. A. Galleries, Washington, D.C., October-December, 1961.)
Erbe credits her mother, Bertz, for starting her on the path to artmaking; her mother worked in the children's books area of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. During Erbe's childhood, the country was suffering the Depression. Erbe's mother would send her to her room and tell her not to emerge until she had completed a painting or drawing, a task she enjoyed doing. As for subject matter, she recalls the continual impact resulting from her father taking her as a child to the sideshow to see "the freaks." She began study sessions at the Maryland Institute College of Art at age seven in 1933, and continued there until 1954, receiving scholarships along the way.
While she began her career painting portraits, her instructor Louis Bouché encouraged her to paint other subjects, and she never returned to portrait painting. Joan Erbe's late husband was writer, director, photographer and founder of the Baltimore Film Forum, George Udel, who she married in the mid-1950s.
Education/Training: Maryland Institute College of Art
Taught By: Leonard Bahr; Louis Bouché
Selected References: I. F. A. Galleries. Recent Paintings by Joan Erbe, Exhibition Brochure, Washington, D.C., October-December, 1961.
Oldham, Ned. "The Bird," Baltimore Magazine, December 2001.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: The Baltimore Museum of Art
Single-Artist Exhibitions: partial list:
The Baltimore Museum of Art.
The Butler Institute of American Art.
Goucher College.
The Johns Hopkins University.
The Smithsonian Institute (Washington, D.C.)
Philadelphia Art Alliance.
Salpeter Gallery (New York City), 1961.
St. John's College (Annapolis, MD).
The University of Maryland.
I.F. A. Gallery (Washington, DC).
Joan Erbe, NYE Gomez Gallery (Baltimore, Maryland), November 9-December 7, 1991.
Joan Erbe: Harpies, Humans and Others, NYE Gomez Gallery, March 20-April 17, 1993.
Joan Erbe, Gomez Gallery, August 9-September 7, 1997.
Multiple-Artist Exhibitions: partial list:
The Baltimore Museum of Art.
The Berkshire Art Festival.
The Cooperstown Museum.
The Corcoran Gallery.
The Peale Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
The Library of Congress.
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