Max Gimblett

Maxwell Harold "Max" Gimblett ONZM (born 5 December 1935 is a New Zealand artist. He is well known for his paintings, sculpture, ink drawings, works on paper, and artist’s books.

Gimblett was born in Auckland, New Zealand, a second-generation New Zealander.

Gimblett attended King's School and Auckland Grammar School in 1950, and left New Zealand in 1956 to travel throughout Europe until 1961, with a brief return to Auckland for a year in 1958-59. Traveling to the America's in 1962, Gimblett apprenticed with master potter Roman Bartkiw in Toronto, Canada and then worked with master ceramist Merton Chambers from 1962 to 1964. In 1964 he married Barbara Kirshenblatt. That same year he studied drawing at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto. In 1965 he studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California.

From 1967 to 1970, he lived and painted in Bloomington, Indiana where Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett was completing her PhD in Folklore Studies. From 1970 to 1972 he resided in Austin, Texas, where Barbara was an associate professor in the English department at the University of Texas, Austin.

Gimblett moved to New York in 1972 and in 1974 formed an affinity and enduring friendship with the experimental filmmaker and kinetic sculptor Len Lye, who was a fellow New Zealander. Gimblett continued to support his work after Lye's death and in 1990 he became a trustee of the Len Lye Foundation based in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

Gimblett continued to live in New York returning to New Zealand only for brief visits. In 1979 Gimblett became an American Citizen.

Gimblett's work is rich and inventive. He is known for his great technical and stylistic range: the monochrome, geometric abstraction, the calligraphic and figurative expressionism all find a place in the work. He uses novel shaped supports: ovals, circles, and rings. However the quatrefoil is the shape he has really made his own.

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