Martin Gambee

American (1905-1969)

Gambee was a painter, lithographer, craftsperson, designer and educator. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1905, Gambee studied with Howard Giles, Gustave Cimiotti, in Paris with Andrew Lhote and at the Pratt Institute Art School in Brooklyn, New York. He spent the 1930s in New York, and later moved to Carmel, California.

Gambee was a member of the Allied Artists of America, Salmagundi Club, New York Watercolor Club, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Art and the California Watercolor Society. His works were exhibited in the Salon of Americans in 1935, at the Society of Independent Artists in 1936, the Corcoran Gallery, Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the Oakland Art Museum and others. The Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Museum of New Mexico as well as the Albany (NY) Institute of History & Art have works by Gambee in their permanent collections.

Gambee was a teacher at the Institute Allende, San Miguel, Mexico in 1962, and while living in the area, concentrated on painting southerwestern genre scenes, including Navaho.