Beth Hertz Catalog PDF

Beth Hertz Catalog_Beth Hertz Catalog 8/13/15 10:42 AM Page 1 

beth HERTZ 

C I N C I N N A T I A R T G A L L E R I E S , L L C 

www.cincyart.com | sandlers@cincyart.com


Beth Hertz, Ahead of Her Time: Visionary Abstract Painter 

Abstraction has made an explosive return to the visual arts in the past five years or so, and every now 

and again, an artist who is relatively unknown will surface with work that's astonishingly fine. Dayton-area 

based Beth Hertz is just such an artist. An acolyte of Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell, Hertz 

was fascinated by an early movement in abstraction known as Synchromism, often confused or linked with 

the Orphism of French artists Sonia and Robert Delaunay. First appearing in the early part of the twentieth 

century, around l9l0, when the lyrical abstraction of Wassily Kandinsky was becoming a dominant expression 

of non-objective painting, Wright and Russell, and eventually Hertz, attempted to fuse or blend 

both abstract painting and music into a wholeness they called Syncromism; we might now call it an interdisciplinary 

approach to both the visual and performing arts, music in particular. In the late sixties and 

early seventies, a kind of hybrid art form known as synesthesia had a very popular run, and its antecedent 

is clearly synchromism. 

Hertz's paintings are reductivist; she uses the building blocks of painting, color, shape, and form to create 

abstract paintings of extraordinary subtlety and beauty, using mainly very bright color, either the primaries 

or often bright pastels. Creating shapes that express movement across the canvas, particularly juxtaposing 

curvilinear with rectangular geometric shapes, Hertz has produced an incredibly wide range of 

paintings which seem to glide across the canvas (some are horizontal, others vertical). While her colorful 

shapes seem to move, they also create harmonies that very nearly are musical in intention and effect. One 

can see aspects of both Kandinsky's studies in non-objective painting and some of Fauvism's early ideas 

about color and form integrated into Hertz's own work. The incredibly smooth and subtle gradations of 

her hues show a painter of real confidence, one who understands the language and power of color, 

shape and form. Looming behind early abstraction are the late color studies of Monet in particular, whose 

interest in color may be said to have liberated color itself from form and altered how we view color from 

the late l880s to the present. Hertz's paintings look back to late Monet, to early Fauvism, but also forward 

to the pure geometric abstractions of Ellsworth Kelly. For example, the influence of synchromism was 

probably far greater on artists themselves than it was in the 'movements' of the twentieth century as defined 

in art history books. One can see how aspects of synchromism must have had an influence on 

painters like Mark Rothko, whose round and rectangular shapes, one often on top of the other, may have 

grown directly out of this movement. Some of Hertz's own paintings have a real affinity to Rothko's. 

Hertz's paintings manifest a sureness of touch and a confidence with color harmonies. Her organic shapes 

(shapes taken from the natural world, like Miro's and Arp's) combine with rectilinear forms (from pure 

geometry, referencing all the way back to Plato's ideal of beauty, the actual origin of what came to be 

known as geometric abstraction) to create juxtapositions that are, indeed, rhythmic. They bring to mind 

musical rhythms and harmonies. Abstraction may still baffle people, because its intentions and goals are 

both basic and sophisticated, but if you let yourself look at Hertz's paintings, not only will you see how subtly 

she may shift the texture within her shapes, from purely matte or sometimes glossy to mottled, so that 

one feels the importance of the individual gesture, a sense that everything in her paintings has been 

planned to maximize the impact of both movement and the joys of pure color hues and harmonies. One 

need not look for further meanings; the language of abstraction does place art back within its basic components.


Some of Hertz's paintings, particularly those juxtaposing triangular shapes and forms, will 'read' as large 

screens or even murals: some bear a remarkable similarity to the Miro mural that once graced the Terrace 

Plaza Hotel in downtown Cincinnati, now part of the permanent collection of The Cincinnati Art Museum. 

In other paintings of hers, we can see the influence of landscape painting hovering over or within 

her paintings; suns glow or throw arcs of light across her canvases; the sea is manifest, often in her backgrounds, 

and occasionally a sense of a boat or a sail seems implied, as well. In her most complex paintings, 

she layers shapes and forms and colors to create almost four dimensions in space, bringing to mind 

the work of the early Russian Constructivists at the beginning of the twentieth century. The work of 

El Lissitzky, in particular, comes to mind: since synchromism and constructivism appear within about ten 

years of each other, it's highly likely that creative painters were borrowing ideas from one another. Fauvism 

lurks in the forefront of synchromism, as well. Hertz's paintings are clear precursors to what became 

known as the color field painters of the sixties and seventies: what's so impressive about Hertz's work is 

that it combines all these influences while remaining stylistically unique. If Matisse is known for the primacy 

of color over line (still a subject of scholarly debate), then Hertz's work also insists on the primacy of 

color over all other painterly ideas and tropes. Her ideas, and those of the synchromists whom she so admired 

and studied (her master's thesis is on the work of MacDonald-Wright), are decades ahead of their 

times in seeing how the liberation of color at the beginning of the twentieth century could lead in all sorts 

of directions. Looking at Ellsworth Kelly next to Beth Hertz, you'll see how she anticipated work like his. 

Occasionally, one sees hints of representation in many of her paintings: they make us remember that 

Thomas Hart Benton started as an abstractionist and that Jackson Pollock began working with figuration. 

Beth Hertz enjoys sneaking elements of representation, mainly from landscape and secondarily from figuration, 

into her work. She is, at heart, a romantic painter, because her love of color is so extreme, and her 

work tries for universalist themes. Often, her paintings seem interpretations of the universe itself: the first 

photos from the moon of earth often come to mind in her work. Occasional references to earlier American 

mystical painters, like Albert Pinkham Ryder, are also clear in her paintings. Her works possess that of 

optimism and confidence which seems so uniquely American. 

Beth Hertz's work is now due for reconsideration. Those looking are going to see a truly exceptional 

American painter who has synchronized and combined all sorts of ideas and concepts about art itself. 

Hertz presents an alternative to the two usual schools of abstraction, the geometric (best represented by 

Malevich), and the lyrical, most clearly seen in the work of Kandinsky. Falling right between these two 

schools of abstraction, and insisting that color and shape and form can indeed mirror the rhythms of 

music (think of how differently Mondrian approached the same idea in "Broadway Boogie-Woogie"), Beth 

Hertz's paintings appear as new and fresh as if they were just made. The surprise is also in her excellence: 

she is sure, she is smart, and her paintings have an exuberance that we truly need today: her paintings 

soar, even those in small scale, and remind us of the vastness of the American landscape, or 

mindscape, or both. They also possess the human touch, in every one, everywhere, reminding us, too, that 

the human hand is still something well worth valuing in the creation of art itself. 

-- Daniel Brown 

Daniel Brown is an independent art advisor, and editor of the on-line journal of the visual arts, www.aeqai.com


beth HERTZ 

Born in 1920, Beth Hertz was heavily 

influenced by the 20th century art movement 

of Synchromism. This movement connects the 

qualities of color to those of music. 

Biography 

Born 1920 

Education 

Iowa State College (BS, 1941) - Major in Education 

Art Students League of New York (Scholarship) with William Zorach and Ossip Zadkine (1942-43) 

Art Students League of New York - Studied with Robert Brackman and Sidney Dickinson 

Dayton Arts Institute with Bob Koepnick 

Ohio University (MFA, 1968) - Thesis “The Continuing Role of Stanton Macdonald-Wright and 

Synchromism in Modern Painting” 

Hobart Institute of Welding Technology with Katherine Nash and Richard Stankiewicz 

Hobart Sculpture Workshop (Diploma 1967 & 1970) 

Teacher 

Wright Patterson Air Force Base (from 1968) - Brush and Palette group 

Sinclair Community College 

Wittenberg University, Instructor of Fine Arts (1969-1972) 

Wilmington College 

Art Students League of New York (Assistant Professor) with William Zorach and Ossip Zadkine


Exhibition History and Publications 

1942-43 Art Students League of New York, Dayton Art Institute, Ohio University - Student Exhibitions 

1950’s Dayton Chamber of Commerce “2nd Annual Art Exhibition” Awarded 1st place for sculpture 

1954 Camerica Dayton Daily News - Son, Edward (sculpture) featured full page, May 16 

1958 “Art: USA” - New York, New York - #610 Wire Drawing Birds (steelcore, copperwire) 

Chillicothe Gazette - Chillicothe Art League Fall Show (young girl in fruitwood), January 

1963 Dayton Art Institute “Southern Ohio Exhibition” - One painting chosen as a purchase recommendation 

The Dayton Journal Herald - photos of Iron Head sculpture, February 2 

1964 Dayton Art Institute “Artists of Southern Ohio” #12 63-IV, February 15 - March 22 

Dayton Daily News - sculpture, April 

Cincinnati Art Museum “Artists of Cincinnati and Vicinity” 18th Annual Exhibition - #42 Oil & #11 Oil 

1965 Antioch College Exhibition of 17 Paintings 

Cincinnati Art Museum “Artists of Cincinnati and Vicinity” 19th Annual Exhibition - #44 64III Oil & #45 Sculpture (Steel) 

Kettering Oakwood Times - article concerning Antioch College Exhibit, November 4 

Antioch Press - photo of one piece 

1966 Cincinnati Art Museum “Artists of Cincinnati and Vicinity” 20th Annual Exhibition - #28 64XL, Oil, January 8 - February 8 

1967 Dayton Art Institute “All Ohio Painting & Sculpture 1967” - #49 Kouros (Steel), February 18 - March 19 

1968 Dayton Daily News “Observing the Observers” - article mentioning Kouros sculpture at Dayton Art Institute, January 

Studio San Giuseppe Art Gallery | Mt St Joseph College “Artists of Dayton”, September 8 - Octboer 2 

Ohio University “Graduate Art Exhibition” Untitled, Oil, 34 x 40 inches 

1969 Dayton Art Institute “All Ohio Painting & Sculpture Exhibition”, February 

Kettering Oakwood Times - article, February 

Springfield Art Center Exhibition of 18 oils and sculpture, March 21 - April 5 

Dayton Journal Herald - article, March 21 

Springfield Ohio News - article and photo of sculpture, March 23 

Dayton Journal Herald - article about show at Springfield Art Center, March 29 

1970 Boyd Auditorium Gallery | Wilmington College Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture , April 25 - May 16 

1971 Dayton Daily News, Lively Arts Section - photo of outdoor sculplture, April 25 

1972 48 High Street Gallery Exhibition sponsored by The Dayton Society of Painters & Sculptures (Juror) 

1973 Boyd Auditorium Gallery | Wilmington College Exhibition of 12 paintings, September 16 - October 14 

1974 Studio San Giuseppe Art Gallery | Mt. St. Joseph College Painting Exhibition, March 23 - April 13 

1975 Wilmington Spring Arts and Crafts Show (Judge), June 1 

1976 Dayton Art Institute “All Ohio Painting & Sculpture Biennial” - #54 Charm (Sculpture), February 21 - March 21 

Westminster Presbyterian Church “May Festival Show” - #18 Recommended for purchase by the jurors, May 1 - 2 

Wilmington Spring Arts and Crafts Show (Judge), June 6 

Dayton Arts Institute “American Arts Showcase” Oil painting, November 13 - 14 

Rotary Art Show “Professional & Adult Amateur Exhibition” (Judge) 

1978 “Art Reflects Vital Force” Newspaper article featuring Propulsion Quest 

1979 Certificate of Appreciation for 30 Years of Involvement in Art - City of Kettering, Ohio



1982 “The Art Affair” 5 Oils, June 4 - 6 

1984 Shillito Rikes Art Gallery, March 26 - April 23 

Dayton Journal Herald, March 29 

Article about show at Shillito Rikes Art Gallery, March 31 

Eastway Corporation Exhibition of 15 pieces, oil and sculpture, March - April 

1985 Eastway Corporation Exhibition Machu Picchu (Diptych), March - June 

“Sculptor’s Exhibition” National Women’s History Week, March 4 - 8 

“Miami Valley Unitarian Fellowship Showcase”, March 31 - April 21 

Government Center Gallery “Kettering Visual Arts Series” 8 Oils (color field painting), June 9 - 28 

1986 Miami Valley Arts Council Lazarus Gallery “Students of Robert Koepknick” Dayton, Sept 2 - 27 

1987 Eastway Corporation - Purchase of Hertz painting, Machu Picchu, for collection 

1988 Montgomery County Plaza Gallery “Contemporary Sculptors in the Miami Valley”, May 4 - 31 

City of Kettering - Purchase of Hertz painting, Propulsion Quest, for collection 

1989 Greater Mt Nebo Cultural Center “Splash of Color” 

Collection - First Unitarian Society of Plainfield, New Jersey 

Henderson Gallery at Morgan House - Yellow Springs, Ohio 

1990 Rockford Chapel “Women’s Voices Outloud”, November 16 

Judged Congressional Art Competition 

Little Art Theater Exhibition 4 oils - Yellow Springs, Ohio 

1991 “Sunday in the Park without George” Kettering Oakwood Times, May 1 

Riverbend Art Gallery “Visual Arts Network” Dayton, Ohio, May 

Dayton Visual Arts Center #54 Desert Yield and #55 Sky with Comet, Ocober 27, 1991 - January 4, 1992 

1993 Dayton Visual Arts Center Rotation VII, July 1 - August 15 

“Visual Arts Network Exhibition” Xenia, Ohio September - November 

1994 Glen Street Gallery Yellow Springs, Ohio March 17 - May 15 

Dayton Visual Arts Center “3rd Annual Members Exhibit” 

1995 Dayton Visual Arts Center Auction 

John Bryan Community Center “Gallery Exhibition” Yellow Springs, Ohio October 23 - December 4 



Kettering Medical Center - Purchase of Hertz painting, Omphalos, for collection 

1998 Springfield Museum of Art “Elizabeth Hertz Figuring Phenomen” Circle Square/Square Circle, May 23 - August 16 

Springfield Museum of Art “Annual Student Faculty Exhibition” (Juried), July 18 

Springfield Museum of Art - Purchase of Hertz sculpture piece 

2001 Eastway Behavioral Healthcare - Purchase of Hertz painting for permanent collection



2003 Dayton Convention Center “Miami Valley Cooperative Gallery Exhibition” 17 paintings, July 10 - August 31 

Rosewood Art Center Propulsion (sculpture) 

John Bryan Community Center Gallery | Yellow Springs Arts Council Purchase of Hertz Painting, Pink Leading, for collection 

2008 Dayton Visual Arts Center “Fiedler and Hertz Retrospective” 

2009 Dayton Arts Institute Alumni Juried Exhibition - Dark Red Contained 

2010 Dayton Visual Arts Center “Reaching Forward, Reaching Back” (Group Show) 9 oils, May 14 -June 12 

Dayton Daily News - article concerning Dayton Visual Arts Center exhibition, May 23 

Dayton Art Critic Jud Yalkut cited Hertz’s Spiritual Abstractions as among the highlights of the decade in the Dayton Paper 

2011 Dayton Visual Arts Center Exhibition, June 

Beth Hertz exhibited her work for over seven decades in various museums, galleries and 

institutions across the United States. Her paintings can be found in museums as well as 

private and corporate collections in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Iowa and California. 

Pink from Dark Blue on Red-Orange, 1964 

____________________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Paper 

27 1/2 x 32 1/2 inches 

Unsigned


1. 

2 Forms, Orange and Pink, 1966 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

44 x 72 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso 

2. 

Pink's Orange, 1966 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

27 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso


3. 

Blue Arms, 1968 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

41 x 36 inches 

Signed Verso 

4. 

Ruff, 1968 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


5. 

Red Lick, 1969 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

6. 

Cloud Nine, 1969 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

44 x 35 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso


7. 

Blue Beacon, 1971 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

8. 

Blue Folding, 1971 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


9. 

Yellow Cul-de-sac, 1971 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

49 1/2 x 49 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso 

10. 

Red Shift, 1972 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


11. 

Green Line, 1972 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

12. 

Orange Sky, 1973 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


13. 

Fledermaus Fugue, 1973 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

14. 

Crease, 1974 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


15. 

Space Trace Galactic Bridge, 1974 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

46 1/2 x 70 inches 

Signed Verso 

16. 

Yellow Stripe, 1976 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


17. 

Nature of a Vacuum, 1976 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

18. 

Nestling, 1976 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


19. 

Nature of a Vacuum II, 1977 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

20. 

Red-Violet Streak, 1977 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


21. 

California I, 1977 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

22. 

Black Y, 1978 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

50 3/4 x 39 inches 

Signed Verso


23. 

Dark Red Contained, 1979 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

24. 

Allegory - Developing, 1979 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


25. 

Sky Ride, 1980 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

26. 

Untitled, 1980 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


27. 

Kinetoplast, 1981 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

46 1/2 x 53 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso 

28. 

Wide Horizon, 1984 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


29. 

Orange Elusion, 1984 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

44 1/2 x 52 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso 

30. 

Lava Pass, 1987 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

43 1/2 x 37 inches 

Signed Verso


31. 

Rift, 1987 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

44 1/2 x 52 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso 

32. 

Tracking Ion, 1987 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


33. 

Sky With Comet, 1988 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

70 1/2 x 42 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso 

34. 

Crust Shift, 1988 

______________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

59 1/2 x 36 inches 

Signed Verso


35. 

Leaping Fence (Polyptych), 1991 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

24 1/2 x 60 inches (each piece measures 24 1/2 x 15 inches) 

Signed Verso


36. 

Desert Bloom, 1991 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

37. 

Untitled 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

37 1/2 x 46 1/2 inches 

Unsigned


38. 

Yellow Tide (Diptych), 1993 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

35 x 116 inches (each piece measures 35 x 58 inches) 

Signed Verso 

39. 

Collapse of a Clown (Diptych), 1993 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


40. 

Marine Theme (Diptych), 1993 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

41. 

Projectile (Diptych), 1993 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


42. 

Never the Twain, 1994 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


43. 

Tidal Wave, 1994 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

44. 

Pahoehoe, 1994 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


45. 

Sun and Ether / Sky and Earth (Diptych), 1994 

_________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

46. 

Playtime: V with Window, 1995 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

69 x 42 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso


47. 

Allegory Vietnam, 1995 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

69 1/2 x 42 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso 

48. 

Middle of the Road (Triptych), 1995 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

69 1/2 x 111 inches 

Left piece measures 69 1/2 x 42 1/2 inches 

Middle piece measures 69 1/2 x 26 1/2 inches 

Right piece measures 69 1/2 x 42 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso


49. 

Eclipse (Triptych), 1996 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Left piece measures 47 x 28 1/2 inches 

Middle piece measures 47 x 47 inches 

Right piece measures 47 x 28 1/2 inches 

Signed Verso


50. 

Cosm (Diptych), 1997 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed on Stretcher 

51. 

Red Sweep, 1997 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 

42 1/2 x 69 inches 

Signed Verso


52. 

Parent and Scion, 1999 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso 

53. 

Black Hole (Diptych), 2000 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Canvas 


Signed Verso


54. 55. 

Untitled 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 

11 x 14 3/4 inches 

Signed Lower Right 

Untitled 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 

12 x 14 3/4 inches 


56. 

Untitled 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Oil on Paper 


Unsigned


57. 58. 


_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 

12 x 17 3/4 inches, unframed 

Signed Lower Left 


_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 

14 1/4 x 20 inches, unframed 

Unsigned 

59. 60. 


_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 

14 x 20 inches, unframed 

Signed Verso 

Pompeii, 1979 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 


Signed Verso


61. 62. 


_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 



Coming Storm, 1988 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 


Signed Verso 

63. 64. 


_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 


Signed Verso 


_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 


Signed Verso


65. 66. 

Untitled 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 


Unsigned 

Untitled 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 


Unsigned 

67. 

68. 

Untitled (Diptych) 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 


Unsigned 

Untitled 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Watercolor 


Unsigned


69. 

Dotted I, 1967 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Metal Sculpture 

41 x 11 inches

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