Diana Mille, Ph.D.

As with all great art revealing unique and creative genius, the sculptures and drawings of Norman Gorbaty deliberately convey the intentions of their maker. In Gorbaty’s case, his intentions are to inquire with a questioning soul, to see with an open mind, and to interpret and describe with a passionate heart. While Gorbaty’s sculptures and drawings suggest both ancient and modern Judaic narratives, a carefully thought out “staccato-like” process, and an aesthetic that many would argue is “to die for,” the artist humbly maintains that he is simply a picture doer.

In the course of preparing my essay through dialogue and observation, however, I discovered my sympathies lie, instead, with the response of one Rabbi to the artist’s self-perception of being simply a doer of pictures, “You create Norman, and that is godlike.” Without a doubt, Gorbaty knows how to create, and brilliantly at that. The artist demonstrates with conviction the kind of courage and passion in “taking risks” with forms, shapes and symbols which compete with the likes of artists such as Gauguin, Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse. Gorbaty’s works demonstrate, for example, — and even challenge in some cases — the highly complex, fragmented and psychologicallycharged narratives first proposed by these early modernists.

A major methodology that presents itself in Gorbaty’s work is that of a creator who recapitulates in his mind the stories and perceptions from his family of origin, his tribe of Judaic culture and even from those outside this culture and then collects imagery and means — largely drawing and movement — to bring the narrative to life. The works that comprise “To Honor My People” — currently on view at the Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery at Fairfield University — are a memorial to acquaint fellow Jews and non-Jews alike with significant meaning which is intended to last.

As Gorbaty explains, “I have always been a doer of images. The mystery is in the doing. In all my doing, Jewish themes keep emerging. Not unusual in that I am a Jew. These images speak to the suffering of my people, and the contributions they have made to mankind. I make visual statements to save from anonymity those who have suffered for being Jews throughout history: to never forget the road we Jews are traveling.”

However, in his “doing,” the artist also suggests that the works he creates are equipped with secondary stories which invite a further reading and interpretation. Since there were many different authors presenting in the Bible, Gorbaty also feels that there can be more than one interpretation for each single biblical account. One such example can be found in Gorbaty’s Peniel — the biblical story traditionally interpreted as Jacob wrestling with an Angel. According to Gorbaty, this image, however, could as easily signify an internal struggle — “man fighting against himself.” Gorbaty’s journey, which speaks to the suffering of his people, continues in sculptures such as Struma and 4856 (In memoriam). Struma, a vessel which set sail in 1942 from Europe with 769 Jews who were seeking asylum in Palestine, was refused entry into Turkey. With the exception of one child, the vessel’s remaining passengers were left helpless to drift under the most inhumane conditions. The imagery and meaning in 4856 (In memoriam) instead, refers to a much earlier holocaust in world history — the first crusade — and brings to our attention the fact that “Little mention is made of the destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe, especially along the Rhine, where more than 14,000 Jews were killed by peasants and crusaders on their way to Jerusalem for just being Jews.”

It is the artist’s process that also further engages the viewer in a continuous, yet somewhat dichotomous dialogue. Although the biblical themes present in Gorbaty’s Creation Series are quite specific in their imagery (e.g., Creation of Adam, Creation of Eve, Eden, Temptation, Expulsion, Birth of Cain), the artist reminds us that he really just intended these works as “really points of view which are never finished.” Many of Gorbaty’s larger sculptural works, for example, begin as brief sketches, thumbnails, scribbles — only to take the shape of monumental carvings many years later. For example, The Animals –the first sculpture in Gorbaty’s Creation Series— was begun by the artist at the time of his son Ben’s Bar Mitzvah, while the final work, The Expulsion, was not completed until twenty-five years later.

Gorbaty also reminds us of the aesthetic and technical similarities between his process of carving and drawing — a delicacy of heavenly lines and light that truly honors the viewer (as seen in his drawings entitled Shul and Shtettel). Carving in bas relief was for Gorbaty a very similar process as to drawing — using a chisel instead of a pencil, pen or brush. Whether the lines are expressed in two or three dimensions — cut softly into the bass or walnut surfaces or gently gliding along the surface of his drawings, they elicit the poetry of an experienced and emotional tracing that relies on light and shadow to define the image. As the artist himself admits, “Drawing for me is basic to all forms of the visual arts. In doing drawing one becomes a magician symbolically defining three dimensional form in two dimensions. The mark, the line, darkness and light are units of language, as is the word or grammar for communicating feelings, ideas and thought.

It is fair to say that Gorbaty is sort of a magician in all that he does. The artist’s career in general has been one of constant dichotomy and motion, for example, — remembering that Gorbaty’s sculptures and drawings were created against the backdrop of a 50-year career in advertising and graphic design. Gorbaty studied art at Amherst College, Yale University School of Art and Architecture and the Yale Norfolk Summer Arts School, Gorbaty worked consistently in the area of graphic art — at James Eng Associates, L.W. Frolich, Benton and Bowles Advertising, as an adjunct professor of Advanced Graphic Design at Cooper Union and opened his own graphic design studio in 1968.

In the end, however, whether designing, sculpting or drawing Gorbaty makes his marks, and those marks inform him where to go next until he imbues them with a life of their own. Like a magician, the artist makes things come alive. His images are constantly moving around us and we sense their motion through the differing perspectives which become our world and our works. “It is (the) doing of the work that I am about. I am fascinated by the motion around us and often try to capture this in my work. There is movement in life as we “do” it. Everything moves. Images are constantly in motion. This movement combines with our differing perspectives of an image to create unique experiences that I artistically explore.” (Norman Gorbaty)

Diana Mille, Ph.D.
Diana Mille has been director of the Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery and Adjunct Professor of Art History at Fairfield University since 1997. Dr. Mille received her Ph.D. from CUNY Graduate Center, NYC in 1993 specializing in 19th and 20th century art and criticism. Her research and publications focus on the 19th century tonal school and on a variety of multicultural topics in contemporary art. At Fairfield, her courses include Modern, Contemporary Art & Criticism, African American Art and History of Photography. By offering a wide range of diverse and multicultural programming, Dr. Mille has envisioned the gallery as both a hands-on laboratory for Fairfield University students and faculty as well as a venue for educational outreach programming for students and adults in the community. In 2009, she completed her MA in Marriage and Family Therapy at Fairfield University. Dr. Mille believes that her studies have further enhanced her teaching and communications skills with her students and gallery interns on many levels.