Gerard Huber

Biography

Gerard Huber was born in Waterloo, Iowa.
He graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honors, with an emphasis in Painting and Printmaking.

Following completion of undergraduate studies he studied Figure Drawing and Contemporary Theology at the University of Notre Dame and participated in the Blossom-Kent Art Program at Kent State University.

In 1975 he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing from Cranbrook Academy of Art, studying with George Ortman.
In 1994 he received a Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Painting.

He has been a Resident Fellow at The Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont (2008); at the Cummington Community of Art, Cummington, Massachusetts (1988); and twice at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Lynchburg, Virginia (1987, 1988).

He has participated in the Visiting Artist/Visiting Scholar program at The American Academy in Rome (2014, 2015).

He attained the level of fully tenured professor in the Department of Art at Texas A&M University, Commerce, teaching all levels of Drawing, Painting, and Figure Drawing as well as serving on Graduate Student committees for 47 years, retiring in 2022.

Artist Statement

In christianized Western civilization, depictions of naked male flesh have been so closely associated with evil that the only way a nude male body could be tolerated was if it was being abused, punished, or mutilated – a sort of sadomasochistic expiation of an unconscious guilt about merely having a body, whereas depictions of female nudity are culturally acceptable according to John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” because they provide opportunities for “acceptable” male possession whether in fact or desire.

My goal is to challenge contempt for the fully nude male figure, which is thought to be, at best, embarrassing and, at worst, indecent. My exploration involves placing homoerotic male nudes in intimate domestic locations, which engage the viewer either as voyeur or partner. The work is meant to challenge the viewer to examine their values and prejudices vis-a-vis intimacy and the nude male. My intent is to invite the viewer to confront their own beliefs and values about the naked body and to resolve for themselves the question of good and evil regarding nudity in general, and male nudity in particular, as well as provide a peacefully sensual way of drawing the viewer into a space that challenges heteronormative assumptions of male competition, and which demonstrates that same-sex relationships are wholesome, healthy and life-affirming.

My strategy is to employ the sensuality of color, texture, light, illusionistic form, and space as subversive instruments of seduction -- sensual ways of engaging the viewer, as voyeur or partner, into a space that challenges heteronormative assumptions, and which demonstrates that same-sex relationships are wholesome, healthy and life-affirming.

Gerard Huber

Reflections I, 2013, Acrylic on Panel, 71.12x119.38 cm.

Classical Figures I, 1994, Acrylic on Panel, 76.2 x 152.4 cm.

Invidere (To envy), 2001, Acrylic on Panel, 60.96 x 91.54 cm.

Sub Rosa (Under the sign of the rose), 2000, Acrylic on Panel, 106.68 x 99.06 cm.

Juvenes Noctis (Children of the Night), 2003, 96.52 x 149.86 cm.

Resurrectio (Resurrection), 1998, Acrylic on Panel, 106.68 x 101.6 cm.,

Everlasting Embrace, 1995, Acrylic on Panel, 81.28 x 116.84 cm.