Gerda van Leeuwen

Biography

Gerda van Leeuwen was born in the Netherlands and trained in printmaking and painting at Academie Artibus in Utrecht. A work-travel grant from the arts group Kunstliefde took her to Italy to study the prints of Piranesi, and a grant from the Dutch cultural council let her buy an etching press. With that press she set up a full print workshop, collaborated with other artists on portfolios and artist's books, and had several solo exhibitions.

Until 1985 she also taught drawing and printmaking at secondary schools and at a maximum-security prison in Utrecht. In 1985 she moved to New York and, with the artist Peter Yamaoka, her husband, set up Hudson Street Press in Tribeca. From then until 2001 she exhibited the prints it published.

In 2006 the studio moved to Roxbury in the Catskills, where she continues to make work and teach printmaking. Her recent work includes rust prints, monoprints with watercolor, and the ongoing Duology series. She is a member artist of Longyear Gallery in Margaretville, where her work is on permanent display.

Her prints are in private and corporate collections in the United States, the Netherlands, China, Japan and Mexico. At Holland Tunnel Gallery she took part in Framed (2014) and showed in Down To Earth (2023) with Kent Peterson and the late Peter Yamaoka, including a work from her Duology series.

Practice. Printmaking and painting, including rust prints (rust with printing ink or watercolor on paper), monoprints with watercolor, tempera, and the serial Duology works, with attention to found color and surface.