Influential UM Art Professor’s Exhibit At the Lowe Is A Beaded Wonder

“Untitled (Crazy Quilt),” glass beads and thread on canvas, is one of the largest works at 64X116″, in “Gerald Winter: A Life in Beads” now on exhibit at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)

Artist and teacher Gerald “Jerry” Winter had an eye for detail – in his art and in his teaching. A professor of art on the faculty at the University of Miami, his influence in the arts community of Miami is vast and deeply felt.

While he worked in many artistic media throughout his career — including painting, sculpture, and serigraphs, the discovery of a treasure trove of his beadwork led to an exhibition now at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum. Intricate attention to the smallest of elements come together to create compositions rich in visual storytelling.

Portrait of Gerald Winter in his South Miami studio. (Photo by Julia Muench)

“Gerald Winter: A Life in Beads” is at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum through Saturday, Feb. 15. The Lowe Art Museum is the first art museum to publicly display what Jill Deupi, J.D., Ph.D., Beaux Arts director and chief curator at the museum describes as a “very personal body of complex imagery executed entirely in beads.”

It had been the beadwork that was the focus of his practice spending long hours at a loom in his South Miami studio a few blocks from his home before he passed away at the age of 86 in 2023.

There are 16 pieces on display at the Lowe — works that recall outsider art, Native and Indigenous art, and references to art history periods and movements.

One strikingly intricate work features 13 different vignettes, which is Winter’s interpretation in beads of a 16th-century Franco-Flemish Gothic millefleurs tapestry. The original tapestry that Winter most likely based the piece is in the permanent collection at the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Calif., and is displayed in The Billard Room.

“You can tell he is really well versed in both Eastern, Western and Indigenous art history; you see a lot of those references in the work,” says Melissa Diaz, the curator of “A Life In Beads,” and assistant director, collection and exhibition services, at the Lowe Art Museum. “You can see that he is trained because the compositions are very sophisticated and you see those influences coming in,” says Diaz.

“Untitled (Modeled After the Bayeaux Tapestry),” glass beads and thread on canvas with wood spool, approximately 86 panels at 240 square inches each (dimensions approximate), 144 feet long. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)

One of the largest works is “Crazy Quilt,” 64″ X 116″, which appears to be textile patchwork, but at a closer look is made of thousands of beads.

“He had many works that looked at textiles or fashion or clothing,” says Diaz, who says that the show is arranged by themes – meditations on historical artworks, inspirations from his love of travel, and abstract compositions. His process would be to work from scale drawings and then translate the drawings to the loom bead by bead.

The masterpiece of “Life in Beads” is a 144-foot beadwork “roll,” completed in 2009. Modeled after the 1066 Bayeux Tapestry at the Bayeux Museum in France, there are 86 panels at 240 square inches each, with part of the long beadwork tapestry unraveled onto a table at the Lowe. They come from a large wooden spool, which Winter painted on both sides. One of the 86 panels is a self-portrait of the artist.

“Every element is handcrafted. We didn’t have the space to display it in its entirety,” says Diaz about how and why the work is positioned on the table. “But it is my hope, and I have shared this with his family, that the next display should be of the full 144 feet completely unspooled because it’s just an amazing project,” says Diaz.

One of Winter’s two daughters, Laura Escardo (Julia Muench, his other daughter, is an artist based in New Jersey), recalls entering the artist’s studio after her father’s death and discovering at least 50 pieces that she had never seen before.

“We would talk and he’d show me whatever the newest thing he was doing,” says Escardo, but she wasn’t aware of the vast collection created and collected in his studio. “Most of what is now hanging in the Lowe has never been seen before.” Both sisters were integral in getting the work together for the show at the university.

Michael Spring, a former art student of Gerald “Jerry” Winter, and director emeritus of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, speaks at the opening of “Gerald Winter: A Life in Beads” at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. The work “Crazy Quilt” is next to him. (Photo by Francesco Casale)

Michael Spring, director emeritus of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, who was the director for more than three decades before he retired in 2023, was an art student of Winter’s at the University of Miami. For years he had been hoping for an exhibition of his professor’s work.

Spring says he would often speak to Carol Damian, chair of the Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places Trust and former museum director and curator, and Barbara Young, former head of arts services for the Miami-Dade Public Library System, where Winter’s last public exhibition was shown. “I would talk to them about the idea,” he recalls. However, the professor didn’t have an interest in showing his work.

“I was being respectful of that,” says Spring. “If he didn’t want to exhibit that was his business. But I would ask because I knew Carol was a friend of the family and that Barbara had given Jerry his last show. Carol would tell me, ‘I was talking to him the other day and he’s not really interested,’ ” recalls Spring.

Escardo, who lives in West Miami, says it was on everyone’s ” bucket list” to have a solo show for the artist.

Spring says it was Winter whose impact on him as a student would follow him throughout his career in the arts. “I was kind of struggling with what I was going to do with my life. It’s fairly normal when you are an undergraduate, right?” says Spring.

“Four Panels, The Body: The Legs, The Pelvis, The Ribs, The Face,” 2002-2023, each panel 35X33″. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)

“I took Jerry’s painting class,” he recalls. Spring received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Miami and then went on to earn a master of arts degree in painting from New York University. After encountering Winter, he says, a career in the arts really made sense to him. “After having seen the intellect and the curiosity that Jerry had about the world and life. And I thought, ‘If that is what you can pursue in the arts, then it was clear to me that that would be the path that I would take. He was such an inspirational teacher and his sense of inquisitiveness, not just about art but the world, and that was infectious and affected the rest of my life.”

After learning of Winter’s death, he called Damian and Young. “I said, ‘I wonder what the family’s doing about his work? There must be a ton of it that’s been generated over the decades.’ ” After contacting his daughters, the three went to South Miami to the house Winter shared with his wife, Deborah, and to his studio. “We were just knocked out by the amount of work and the brilliance, at which point we said to Laura and Julie, we’re happy to help you try to get an exhibition for him. And the people at the Lowe were all in and they immediately figured it all out.”

Deupi of the University of Miami says it has been a “privileged opportunity for her and her team to work closely with the artist’s family as well as many of his students and friends” on what she calls “this important project.”

Detail of “Animalia Theater,” glass beads and thread on canvas, 68 X40″. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)

Another memory from Spring’s days at UM was seeing a faculty show at the Lowe that featured his mentor’s work. “Now this is sort of a homecoming for Jerry with the work coming back to where he originally showed. And that seemed like poetry to me,” says Spring.

While she was the head of arts services for the Miami-Dade Public Library System, Young hosted Winter’s last show. “For some reason, he said, ‘yes’ when I asked him to do that last show with me at the library in 2005. There were six large, beaded pieces. It was nice because anyone who came in could see it. It was accessible to all,” she says.

Young says after that she would mention on and off, as the years went by, that he should have another show. “He would sort of say, ‘yes, and then he would say, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ And I thought it would be great for Michael (Spring) to visit him and maybe that would encourage him,” says Young, who lives in the same neighborhood and always delighted in dropping off pumpkin bread to Winter and his wife. “It was such a pleasure to go over there. He had tons of files and I’m sure there were lots of prints and drawings. There must be plenty of treasures he left,” she says.

As a friend and colleague, Damian recalls parties at the Winter home. “There was so much work on the walls, but his wife Debbie would sneak me into a room where he had a lot of the beadwork and even a loom there. So, I knew he was doing this kind of work way, way back, but he never wanted to do anything with it.”

Damian, who is a professor of art history in the Department of Art and Art History at Florida International University and the former director and chief curator at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at FIU, is a specialist in Latin American and Caribbean Art. She is also the chairperson of the Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places Trust. She received her Ph.D. and master’s degree from University of Miami, and was an instructor of art history there for more than a decade.

“Conimbriga Variations,” 1979, glass beads and thread on canvas, 43X43″. (Photo by Francesco Casale, Courtesy the Estate of Gerald Winter)

“I was on the faculty when Jerry was there. So many of his students will say that they remember that he was so interested in art history and wanted to make sure his students were, so that to me is very telling when it comes to the beadwork in the exhibition. When you see those works they are all about art history. You will recognize with each work something,” says Damian. “It might be a classical piece of architecture, or it might be a mandala, for instance.”

She says she and Spring and Young were “flabbergasted” and “speechless” when they met with Laura and Julie and saw everything that had been unearthed. “I had seen the loom over the years and a small bit of what he was doing but I thought it was maybe a hobby. I never knew of the extent of what he produced. And when you see the works in person, they are so obsessively meticulous – millions and millions of beads.”

For Diaz, Winter’s works fit into a larger context of beadwork and tapestry. “Throughout history, this type of work has been a way of storytelling, of visual narrating. Even before people were literate, they would use these kinds of beadwork tapestries to tell their stories, to share mythologies, and to share narratives,” she says. “They really fall within that realm.”

There is a sense of awe the artist has created with its level of detail and the intricacy through the handiwork, the thousands of beads and the time commitment in creating each piece. And, Diaz says, there’s something more that draws viewers in.

“His work encourages you to keep looking.” She promises “you will see something new and experience something new each time.”

WHAT:  “Gerald Winter: A Life In Beads”

WHERE: Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, 1301 Stanford Drive, Miami

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, through Feb. 15.

COST: Free

INFORMATION: (305) 284-3535 and lowe.miami.edu

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