Herbert Gentry

Herbert Gentry (1919–2003) was an American painter associated with postwar abstraction, whose work combined gestural painting with figuration and calligraphic elements.

After studying in New York, Gentry moved to Paris in the late 1940s, where he became part of the international and Afro-American community of artists working in the city. Within this milieu, he was connected to a circle of expatriate artists and writers that included Beauford Delaney, James Baldwin, Ed Clark,  Barbara Chase-Riboud and Joan Mitchel.

Gentry was also owner of the Chez Honey, jazz club-gallery, a gathering place for artists, writers, and musicians:

“But first Gentry drops briefly into the Dôme. Through the smoky haze and buzz of conversation, he scans the seated crowd for the other expatriate abstract painters from America who regularly stop in – Sam Francis, Al Held, Joan Mitchell, Ed Clark. Gentry spies Clark, a young African-American who studied at the Chicago Art Institute, huddled with Joan Mitchell. The two of them are discussing texture and brushwork like there’s no tomorrow; Mitchell has just ordered un scotch, her third. She downs it quickly, with cigarette puffs. “Helluvan hour;” she murmurs huskily, “but time for my Indian rope tricks again with the paint.” Kissing them on both cheeks, she glides into the darkening night. “You missed Harold Cousins,” says Clark, rubbing a daub of blue paint from his hand. « He’s off to meet his wife.”

He remained based in Europe for most of his life, contributing to the transatlantic exchange between American and European postwar art.