NATHAN GLUCK

After serving in Europe and the Pacific Theater during World War II, Gluck returned to New York City where he went on to become a successful commercial artist and, most notably, Andy Warhol’s studio assistant from 1953 through 1965, covering the pre-Pop and early Pop period. Gluck continued to work privately on his fine art throughout his lifetime and upon retirement in 1995, at the age of 77, embarked on an extraordinary body of work—collages still rooted in Surrealism, which became his focus until his death in 2008. In these late works, Gluck was able to synthesize his many disparate interests and passions into a single voice—from art, literature, music, theater and opera to language, history, anthropology, food and

travel. UNLOCKING THE MIND: Nathan Gluck’s Early Surrealist Collages, invites us to reexamine Nathan Gluck’s early collage works and their contexts. Like many young artists at the time, Surrealism would influence their practices and create a foundation for future artworks.

Nathan Gluck was born on June 24, 1918 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. His mother was part of the Margareten- Horowitz clan, famous for their Passover products. His father was a real estate agent and the family enjoyed an upper middle-class lifestyle until the Great Depression hit, at which time they nearly lost everything and resorted to bottling and selling seltzer water out of their basement. In the late 1930s, Gluck attended Cooper Union in Manhattan and the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, NY; in 1941, he studied under Vaclyv Vytlacil at the Art Students League. Gluck began his career as a designer with the L. Bamberger department store in New Jersey, which included designing a poster that is now in the Museum of Modern Art Poster Collection. Upon his return to New York after World War II he continued his successful career as an illustrator, designer and art director. He was an art director and illustrator at the George N. Kahn Agency, New York, and briefly at the Rockmore Company, an advertising agency where Andy Warhol freelanced, beginning that professional relationship. In 1952, he was selected by the ICA Boston to head a design studio at Cheney Silks designing fabric for men’s neckwear. In 1954, he designed the cover for Fortune Magazine for the visionary art director, former Futurist designer and noted children's author and illustrator, Leo Leonni. He also designed windows for Gene Moore at Bonwit Teller and Tiffany & Co., and created dozens of original Christmas cards for The Museum of Modern Art, Tiffany & Co., Bergdorf Goodman, Georg Jensen, Cartier, Brentano’s, and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, among others.

During his life, Gluck came to know many noted artists and art world luminaries whom he admired, including Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, Pierre Matisse, Ray Johnson, George Wittenborn, Paul Rand, Philip Johnson, as well as numerous other greats from the design world. After Warhol died, the Warhol Foundation turned to Gluck, with his first-hand knowledge and expertise, to help authenticate Warhol’s pre-Pop works, which he continued to do until shortly before he passed away. In the last decade of his life Gluck realized several solo exhibitions, including “Ephemeral Musings” (2017) at the Reinhold Brown Gallery in New York; “Nathan Gluck: Collages” (2001) at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg; and, “Limited Time Offer” (2008) at the Athenaeum of Music and Arts Library, in La Jolla, CA. Nathan Gluck died on September 27, 2008. Nathan Gluck’s works are included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Athenaeum of Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, CA; and numerous private collections worldwide.