Florida Artists Group

Herman's Bio:

Herman Carl Bek-gran, a advertising creative director and designer in New York City and New Jersey, was born in 1923 in Nuremberg, Germany. He was the grandson of a well-known designer, painter, and professor. Herman’s parents immigrated to Detroit, Michigan, in 1926. He graduated from Cass Technical High School, the leading Detroit art and technology school of its day, then went off to Kansas on a scholarship at the Kansas City Art School. After only a few months in Kansas, the US Army called. Assigned  to the 13th Armored Division, he fought his way through his German  birthplace--no stops to say hello to relatives.

On discharge he settled in New York City, where he studied at  the Franklin School of Design and the School of Visual Arts in New York City and  the Brooklyn Museum Art School. He became an award-winning creative art director for a number of agencies during those Mad Men years. On his lunch hours you could find him in midtown Manhattan’s art galleries, keeping in touch with trends in the fast-changing art world of the ‘50s and ‘60s, In 1966 he found a perfect haven: Monhegan Island, off the Maine coast. He went there in the summer for almost 30 years. He enjoyed the rough island living, the working fishermen, and the company of his fellow artists, who set up their easels in the meadows or along the cliffs overlooking the ocean; plein air painting was an everyday affair there. All winter he kept busy creating oils, working  from the  transparent watercolors he did  on Monhegan.

When he opened his own advertising studio in 1970, he and his wife could travel—to Scotland, Spain, and Italy, and also to less obvious places: the Yucatan, Central Mexico, and Guatemala. Later, retirement and a move to Florida gave him a chance to explore the American West. He died in 2011 after a productive and fruitful artistic life in Florida.

Associations and Teaching:   

In New Jersey: Bek-gran was a member of the News Jersey Art Directors’ Club and the Ringwood Manor Art Association; in Florida: member of the Venice Art Center, signature member of the Florida Suncoast Watercolor Society; Florida Artists’ Group. He was represented by Wyckoff Gallery in New Jersey and Loopin Gallery on Monhegan Island.

Bek-Gran, who won many awards for corporate logos, signage, and print and multimedia ads,  taught typography and graphics at Parsons School of Design in New York City, the Ridgewood School of Design in Ridgewood, NJ, and Montclair State College in Montclair, NJ.

Style:
Radient Hues and Strong Values

Herman Bek-gran’s styles ranged from  abstract  to figurative - always brilliant, vibrant colors applied with intrepid exuberance.   He worked as effectively in oil on canvas, transparent watercolor on paper, and acrylic on canvas or paper. His oils and acrylics are brilliant and bold statements.  His transparent watercolors glow with light. 
Bek-gran’s paintings reflect the impressions made by Mayan art and architecture, the greatness of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, the intimacy of the forests of North Carolina, and the character of any sea, desert, sky or person he painted - he sought the essence of the subject. Painters he admired are: Names of artists can be listed if it would read better.

Artistic Influences:    
Bright and Bold

From his early days as an art director in New York, Bek-gran spent his spare moments in museums studying masterpieces of the past and near-past --his favorites included Gustav Klimt, Willem de Kooning, Diego Rivera of Detroit mural fame, and Georgia O’Keefe. He had an amazing memory for visual images and a fascination with art history. His eclectic library included both art and world history studies.
These could be listed 1 under the other if it would work better.Gustave Klimt, David Hockney, Diego Rivera, Georgia O’Keefe, Vincent Van Gogh, Ansel Adams, Wassily Kandinski, Leonardo DeVince, Winslow Homer, El Greco, Pieter Bruegel, the Elder, Willem de Kooning
In his retirement years, his paintings began to show the colors and shapes of the canyons and desert—particularly the Grand Canyon—and the vastness of New Mexico, along with the dramatic seascapes of Bermuda and Florida. As he traveled he supplemented his watercolor sketches with photographs. Later he would turn this material into the big brilliant landscapes and abstract paintings in vivid colors for which he is known.

Exhibitions:
Awards and Admiration

 Bek-gran exhibited in countless group shows and won many First and Best of Show awards.  He had several solo exhibitions and two joint exhibitions with his wife, Phyllis, who is  an exhibiting artist. Their most recent joint effort was at the Englewood Art Center, Englewood, Fl in 2007. His paitings were always an asset to the exhibition and he was greatly respected by his fellow painters.

His paintings have been exhibited at the following venues frequently over many years;
Florida Artist’s Group, Florida  signature member
Florida Suncoast Watercolor Group, Florida  signature member
Venice Art Center, Venice Florida
Moss Gallery, Port Charlotte, Florida
Wyckoff Gallery, Wyckoff, New Jersey
Lupin Gallery, Monhegan Island, Maine
Bergen County Annual Exhibition, Paramus, New Jersey
Ringwood Manor Art Association, Ringwood, New Jersey

His paintings hang in many public and private collections across the country and in Europe.