Peter Gee
Encyclopedia
Peter Gee was a British-born artist and developer who spent most of his life living and working in New York City. He was active in the pop art
movement of the 60s.
. By the end of the 50s, he had exhibited at the Denise Rene Gallery in Paris, where he lived briefly, and the Axiom Gallery in London. He came to the US in 1962.
Throughout the 60s, Gee experienced a high degree of success as a pop artist in Manhattan. His work from this era has been collected by The Museum of Modern Art
in both New York City and Kyoto, The Smithsonian and the Library of Congress
in Washington DC, and The Victoria and Albert Museum
in London. Gee exhibited with Andy Warhol
and Robert Indiana
for the "Word and Image" show in 1968 at the Museum of Modern Art
. During this time, he was also teaching classes at the New School
, the School of Visual Arts
, and the Harvard Architectural School.
Gee formed his close friendship with fashion designer Betsy Johnson in the 60s. He designed the art and packages which she used in her Soho-based store Paraphernalia, and Johnson's lips are the subject of many of his silkscreens and giclées.
Gee and his wife Elsie had a son named Brandon in 1971. They later divorced, and Gee became involved with antique-dealer Olga Opsahl. They had two children, Odin and Harry, born in 1981 and 1985. In 1989, Gee married Olga at the Round Hill resort near Montego Bay in Jamaica, where he owned property, exhibited his work, and occasionally taught color theory classes to vacationers.
, Betsy Johnson's lips, Martin Luther King Jr, and the famous Puck Building in New York City. Gee often printed on silver mylar and metallic gold paper.
Later in his life, Gee began to paint with oils. Some of his paintings are color experiments in the same vein as his silkscreens- they involve simple and clearly defined shapes, usually squares and rectangles. Others are still lives, interiors, and nudes.
Gee began to make giclée
prints using a computer and archival inks some years before his death. Some of these giclées were reproductions or were intended as reproductions, but he considered many of them to be new and original work involving colors that he had been unable to achieve or that he had not thought to try with a silkscreen process decades before. After Gee died, his family and printer made arrangements to complete some limited editions of his giclées using the computer files which Gee had created during his lifetime.
, which he operated with his partner Paul Serra in the 80s and early nineties. In 1994, Gee bought the Cape Cod School of Art
in Provincetown Massachusetts and began to restore the buildings while living in the old student dormitories with his family. He taught Summer classes at the reopened school, which he re-named the Hawthorne School of Art. The school was resold after his death.
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
movement of the 60s.
Biography
Gee was born on July 23, 1932 in Leicestershire, England. He was interested in drawing as a child and worked as a graphic designer for the British army when he joined at the age of 18. Upon leaving the army, he attended the Central Saint Martins College of Art and DesignCentral Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. The school has an outstanding international reputation, and is considered one of the world's leading art and design institutions...
. By the end of the 50s, he had exhibited at the Denise Rene Gallery in Paris, where he lived briefly, and the Axiom Gallery in London. He came to the US in 1962.
Throughout the 60s, Gee experienced a high degree of success as a pop artist in Manhattan. His work from this era has been collected by The Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in both New York City and Kyoto, The Smithsonian and the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in Washington DC, and The Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
in London. Gee exhibited with Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
and Robert Indiana
Robert Indiana
Robert Indiana is an American artist associated with the Pop Art movement.-Life and work:Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana. His family relocated to Indianapolis, where he graduated from Arsenal Technical High School...
for the "Word and Image" show in 1968 at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. During this time, he was also teaching classes at the New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
, the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
, and the Harvard Architectural School.
Gee formed his close friendship with fashion designer Betsy Johnson in the 60s. He designed the art and packages which she used in her Soho-based store Paraphernalia, and Johnson's lips are the subject of many of his silkscreens and giclées.
Gee and his wife Elsie had a son named Brandon in 1971. They later divorced, and Gee became involved with antique-dealer Olga Opsahl. They had two children, Odin and Harry, born in 1981 and 1985. In 1989, Gee married Olga at the Round Hill resort near Montego Bay in Jamaica, where he owned property, exhibited his work, and occasionally taught color theory classes to vacationers.
Art
Gee was mainly concerned with color theory throughout his life. Until the 80s, his preferred medium for exploring color combinations was silkscreen printing. He used a series of basic shapes in various combinations, usually bulls-eye targets and very simplified daisies which he would print individually, in long strips, or in larger rectangles which combined many strips of differently colored daisies and targets. He also printed silkscreens of Betsy Johnson and her colleague Penelope TreePenelope Tree
Penelope Tree is an Anglo-American former fashion model prominent in swinging sixties London.-Life and career:She was the only child of Marietta Peabody Tree, a socialite and Democratic political activist, and Ronald Tree, a bisexual journalist, investor and MP. Tree is a great-granddaughter of...
, Betsy Johnson's lips, Martin Luther King Jr, and the famous Puck Building in New York City. Gee often printed on silver mylar and metallic gold paper.
Later in his life, Gee began to paint with oils. Some of his paintings are color experiments in the same vein as his silkscreens- they involve simple and clearly defined shapes, usually squares and rectangles. Others are still lives, interiors, and nudes.
Gee began to make giclée
Giclée
Giclée , is a neologism coined in 1991 by printmaker Jack Duganne for fine art digital prints made on ink-jet printers. The name originally applied to fine art prints created on IRIS printers in a process invented in the late 1980s but has since come to mean any high quality ink-jet print and is...
prints using a computer and archival inks some years before his death. Some of these giclées were reproductions or were intended as reproductions, but he considered many of them to be new and original work involving colors that he had been unable to achieve or that he had not thought to try with a silkscreen process decades before. After Gee died, his family and printer made arrangements to complete some limited editions of his giclées using the computer files which Gee had created during his lifetime.
Work in development and renovation
In addition to pursuing his artistic career, Peter Gee renovated and restored twenty-some historic and unusual buildings in Soho and Tribeca. One of these was the Puck BuildingPuck Building
__notoc__The Puck Building occupies the block bounded by Lafayette, Houston, Mulberry and Jersey Streets in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, United States. An example of the German Rundbogenstil style of Romanesque Revival architecture , the building was designed by Albert Wagner, and was...
, which he operated with his partner Paul Serra in the 80s and early nineties. In 1994, Gee bought the Cape Cod School of Art
Cape Cod School of Art
The Cape Cod School of Art was the first outdoor school of figure painting in America; it was started by Charles Webster Hawthorne in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1898....
in Provincetown Massachusetts and began to restore the buildings while living in the old student dormitories with his family. He taught Summer classes at the reopened school, which he re-named the Hawthorne School of Art. The school was resold after his death.