Retirements.2

Gerry and Naomi Shertzer

by Robert Lloyd

As Gerry Shertzer retires after 42 years of teaching, he takes memories with him. But what does he leave behind?

At the center of his legacy lies the idea of the visual studies course. Although the course has evolved in several dimensions since Gerry, Bart Hayes and Diz Bensley hammered out its design in the late 1950s (it was called "stud art" in those single-sex days of PA), the original conceptual armature remains: Visual education is a must for all students (whether or not they think of themselves as "artistic"); it is a multidisciplinary enterprise with significant intellectual content; and it can be taught in ways that elicit the thoughtful, creative output of just about everybody.

The continuing power of these concepts is attested to not only by the endurance of the course itself, still required for the PA diploma, but by the surprising number of graduates of this era who have ended up as artists, designers, filmmakers, architects, builders, inventors-or in any of the other vocations or avocations in which the interactions of a discerning eye and a careful hand are modulated by an active, educated and disciplined mind.

Those who wish more tangible evidence of the vigor of Gerry Shertzer's thinking and teaching will find it on Alumni Reunion Weekend in the Gelb and Stein-bach galleries in George Washington Hall, where a group of his former students in the 25th Reunion class are planning to hold a show of their work in his honor.

Perhaps he absorbed an early love of craft from his father, a glazer, in Brooklyn, N.Y. For whatever reasons, Gerry entered Music and Art High School in Manhattan, commuting for hours each day, and thence won entry to Cooper Union. Next he went north to Yale University where, after a year, he married Cooper Union classmate Naomi Levy. In 1957, Bart Hayes lured the two further north to Andover, where Gerry joined the art department. He brought a remarkable breadth of creative skills-metal and wood sculpture, drawing, graphics, photography and painting-as well as the experience of having taught at Yale with Josef Albers of Bauhaus fame.

In addition to teaching, Gerry has applied his special eye-mind-hand coordination to chairing the art department and heading two organizations of independent school art teachers. He has been a lead teacher in several teacher-education programs, traveled as an artist for the U.S. Information Service People to People Program,

instituted the Ralph Bradley Arts Festivals and gourmet cook (who still dreams of running a restaurant!), as creative collaborator and colleague, as consummate show-hanger. At the center of these memories are images of Gerry with students-exposing an idea, drawing an example, presenting a startling image, responding to challenges or questions with that steady, patient, persuasive voice that led students ahead and over the hump to newness.

Away from the classroom I saw his skills at work as the Shertzer and Lloyd children-known around Highland Wayside as "the gang of six"-required the leading and restraints all children need. Together, Gerry and Naomi, with Amy, Rebecca and Dan, have built and sustained a life and a family of perceptive, thoughtful doers.

Naomi's eyes light up as she lists the features of the Brookline apartment she and Gerry are retiring to this summer: "Two different transit lines within a block, a movie theatre and any kind of restaurant you can imagine within walking distance. Gerry can even walk to Fenway Park!"

Robert Lloyd is a Phillips Academy art teacher emeritus living in Vermont.