StoneTree Gallery
Stonetree Gallery
Carl Hertel - Mixed Media
Title: "Kimchi Series II" 25"h x 29"w
Carl was born on december 12, 1930 at Seaside Hospital in Long Beach, California. His mother, Ann LaBorde Hertel and father, Huck Hertel, had moved to Long Beach from their ranch in San Jacinto, California as a result of the Great Depression. Hertel was raised in Long Beach, Montebello and Pasadena where he attended high school and majored in geology and art. He attended Pomona College (B.A. 1952) and Harvard University (M.A. 1955) and Claremont Graduate School (M.F.A. 1958). He became a professor of art and held appointments at various institutions in California, but eventually became a faculty member at Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California for 27 years. He directed various environmental and art projects at Claremont including the Solar Colloquium and the Desert Studies Program which he co-directed with ecologist Paul Shepard for 20 years operating external studies projects in Baja California, California, Arizona and New Mexico. He retired as full professor of Art and Environmental studies in 1994 and moved permanently to his home in New Mexico to continue work in Art and to serve on various environmentally concerned boards.
He was the president of the Rio Abajo Garden Alliance (RAGA) in Albuquerque and operates the Energy Alternatives in Rural Situations (EARS) project in Mountainair, New Mexico. All the while he created art and exhibited in galleries throughout the U.S.
In 1949 he won the Honorable Mention at the national exhibition of the American Society of Arts and Letters Exhibition at the Corcoran Galleries in Washington, D.C. Over the years he has shown at various galleries and museums including the Scripps College Galleries, the Salathe Gallery, the Los Angeles County Annuals, The Corona del Mar Sherman Institute Gallery; the Comara Gallery, Beverly Hills; The Light Space, Santa Fe, New Mexico and various others.
As a recipient of several grants from the Durfee Foundation in Los Angeles, Ca. during the 1990's, Carl Hertel visited China, Tibet, Japan, Bali, and South Asia meeting with artists, healers and spiritual leaders discussing the interaction of art and healing. As a result he arranged exchange visits and exhibitions between the various countries and the U.S. and shared his own work in those parts of Asia.
His painting and environmental site pieces reflect this particular interest. While his collages are filled with images and fairly obvious references to the West and ranchlife, his paintings are much more abstract and reflect spiritual and healing dimensions of conflicts characterizing life in this part of the modern West. All the work shares a positive concern for nature, life, and culture as we experience it in the so-called New West.
