Gerda Bernstein

Artist Details

• First Name Gerda
• Maiden Name Meyer
• Alternate Name(s) Gerda Meyer Bernstein
• Surname Bernstein
• Birth Date 1923
• Birth Place Westphalia, Germany
• Ethnicity German Jewish
• Residence(s) Chicago, Illinois
• Active In Chicago, Illinois
• Categories Conceptual Artist, Lithographer, Painter, Printmaker, Sculptor
• Training BA and MFA (1978): School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
• Exhibitions History 2015-2017:  Making Their Mark: Illinois Women Artists, 1940-1960s, Peoria River Front Museum, Peoria Illinois and traveling
  2015: Marginalized, Bradley University Peoria, Illinois; solo; curator: Ingrid Fassbender (solo)
  2014: Fires Will Burn, DePaul Museum, Chicago, Illinois
  2013: Southern Illinois Art Gallery, Rend Lake, Illinois
  September 14, 2012: The Installation Experiment, Chicago, Illinois
  May 20, 2012-January 6, 2013: Springfield Museum, Springfield, Illinois
  October 11, 2011-April, 2012: Lockport Museum, Lockport, Illinois
  April 4-August 26, 2011: Luminous Ground, Artists With Histories, Illinois State Museum, Chicago, Illinois
  2008: Marginalized, Domestic Surveillance, and Exercise in Futility, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, Illinois; 3 solo installations
  2007: Exit Only, Army of the Disappeared, Tribunal, and Untold Story, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford Illinois, 4 solo installations
  
  -- Freedom March, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois; solo installation
  
  River and Phoenix, University of Illinois I Space Galleries, Chicago, Illinois; solo
  2006: Hooded March, IUN Gallery for Contemporary Art, Indian University Northwest, Gary, Indiana; site-specific solo installation
  2004/2005: Lodz Biennale, International Artists’ Museum, Lodz, Poland
  2003: Freedom March, Kunsthaus Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany and Fassbender Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; site-specific solo installation
  
  2002: Witness and Legacy, Frye Museum, Seattle, Washington
  2001: Witness and Legacy South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, Indiana
  2001: Tribunal, Reicher Gallery, Barat College, Lake Forest, Illinois; site-specific solo installation
  2000: Tribunal and Windows, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; site-specific solo installations
  2000: Witness and Legacy, Tucson Art Museum, Tucson, Arizona; Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama; DeCordiva Art Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts
  1999: 30 times 15 x 15”, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
     -- Witness and Legacy Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia; Oklahoma City Art Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; New Jersey State Museum, New Jersey
  1998: Witness and Legacy Tampa Bay Holocaust Museum, Tampa Bay, Florida; Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee; University Art Museum, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York
     --Shattered Visions: Contemporary Legacies of the Holocaust, Suburban Fine Art Center, Highland Park, Illinois
  1997: Witness and Legacy, Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston Art Museum, Houston, Texas; Aurora Public Art Commission Museum and Gallery, Aurora, Illinois; Tampa Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
     -- Shattered Visions: Contemporary Legacies of the Holocaust, Suburban Fine Arts Center, Highland Park, Illinois
     -- Twelve Women Artists/ Women in the Arts, Robert De Caprio Gallery, Moraine College, Palos Hills, Illinois
     -- Communicazioni Visive Tramiti Concessioni Globalia, Gallery of Modern Art of the City of Ferrara, Italy
  --  The Agreement and Exit Only, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; site-specific solo installations
  1996: Passages, Ellis Island Immigration Museum, New York, New York; solo installation
  --  Art Chicago Group Exhibition, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago Illinois
  --  Civil Rights Now, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art Cleveland, OH; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; The Parish Art Museum, Southampton, New York
  1995: Gallery Artist Group Exhibition, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
  Witness and Legacy-Art about the Holocaust, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, Minnesota; site-specific installation
  --  Block 11, Alternative Museum, New York, New York; solo installation
  1994: Bridges & Boundaries, Spertus Museum, Chicago, Illinois
  
     -- The Eighth Deadly Sin, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; site-specific solo installation
  
     -- Phoenix, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  --  Robert F DeCaprio Art Gallery, Moraine Valley College, Palos Hills, Illinois; solo
  1993: Block 11, Beacon Street Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; solo installation
  -- University of Wisconsin Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  -- Peace Museum, Chicago, Illinois
  1993: University of Wisconsin Memorial Union, Madison, Wisconsin
  1992: A.I.R. Gallery, New York, New York
  1991: Burning in Hell, Franklin Furnace Gallery, New York, New York
  --  Block 11, Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois; solo installation
  1990: Northern Illinois University Art Museum, DeKalb, Illinois
  1989: Chicago Office of Fine Arts, The Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois
      -- Alumni Exhibit, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
  -- Army of the Disappeared, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, New York
  -- Block 11, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, New York; solo installation
  1988, 1987: A.I.R. Gallery, New York, New York
  1987: Political Visions, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany; Bochum Museum, Bochum, West Germany; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, West Germany
  1986: Political Statements, Ministerio de Cultura, Madrid, Spain
  1985: American Women in Art, United Nations Conference on Women, Nairobi, Kenya; Women's Interart Center, New York, NY (Three-person Invitational)
  --  A.I.R. Gallery, New York, New York; solo
  1984: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, West Germany; Five-person Invitational
  Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois
  -- A Chicago History, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois
  -- Five Artists, National Affiliate Exhibit, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, New York
  1982: Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Hagen, West Germany; solo
       -- Prints and Multiples by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, National Academy of Design, New York, New York
  Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
  -- The National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.
  
  -- Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
  
  -- National Academy of Design, New York, New York
  
  -- Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Illinois
  1981: Studies Through Photography, Purdue University, Purdue, Indiana; Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, Indiana
  
  -- Generative Systems Exhibition, Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois
  
  -- Print Club of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  -- Paper in Particular, Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois
  1979: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
  1979: Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois; solo
  1978, 1975, 1974: ARC Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; solo
  1978: New Horizons in Art, Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois
  1977: University of Illinois, Urbana and Chicago campuses, Illinois
     -- Works on Paper, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri
     -- Critic’s Choice Invitational, 1134 Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
     -- Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; A.I.R. Gallery, New York, New York
  1976: 28th Illinois Invitational, Illinois State Museum of Art, Springfield, Illinois
  1975: New Horizons in Art, Invitational, Chicago, Illinois
  1974: Carleton College, Northfield Minnesota
  -- Women in Art, Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois
  1973: 35th Annual American Artists’ Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
  1962: University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
  1961: Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  1960: Angeleski Gallery, New York, New York; solo
  
  1958:  Artist Member Exhibition, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
  1956: 59th Exhibition of Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  1955: 58th Exhibition Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
  -- San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, California
  1954: 57th Exhibition of Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  -- Isaac Delgado Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana
  
   
• Collections Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Hagen, Germany
  Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany
  Illinois State Museum, Chicago, Illinois
  Florida Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
  Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, Illinois
  DePaul University Museum, Chicago, Illinois
  Illinois Holocaust Museum, Skokie, Illinois
  Numerous private and public collections
• Publications Peoria Journal Star article on Marginalized on view at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois in 2015.
  Bernstein, Gerda Meyer and Carol Becker. Gerda Meyer Bernstein. Chicago, IL: Fassbender, 1999.
• Memberships founding member 1973: ARC, Chicago, Illinois
• Archive(s) Gerda Meyer Bernstein Papers, 1982-2006; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution oral history, 2010, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
• Website(s) Biographical information on New Music USA website
• Biography At age 17, Gerda Meyer-Bernstein was on one of the last boats of the Kindertransport leaving Germany. Since then, she has dedicated much of her work to Holocaust remembrance, including a number of commemorative installations. Bernstein enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1950s, worked as a teaching assistant, and graduated with an M.F.A. in 1978. She was a founding member of the Artists in Residence Gallery that opened across from the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1973. Bernstein's work was shown in the Art Institute's ""Chicago & Vicinity"" annual three times, always with political content, on an ever-increasing scale.