Catherine Painting

Born in 1927, photographer, painter, educator, Norman Lerner has been visually exploring the world about him since 1952. Although he is best known internationally through his photography, his interests are very eclectic. Throughout the 50"s, 60's and early '70s his fashion, editorial, and commercial photography appeared in such magazines as GQ, Glamour, Look and leading photography publications. As an educator he lectured frequently and established the first degree program in Fashion Photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. He is also Professor Emeritus from the California Polytechnic State University. While there he was gallery art director and also served as director of photographic studies. His work has been exhibited frequently and in the late fifties was shown at the Limelight Gallery, one of the early galleries showing photography in NYC. As his nature, he always experimented in not only pushing the boundaries of the photographic process but also in the way he expressed himself. At Cal Poly, he no longer had to meet closing magazine deadlines and started to quietly pursue the adventure of painting which he continues to this day. Depending on how he feels he could be painting one day and photographing the next. Like the weather, it just depends. As Guido Organschi, critic and curator once wrote, "few artists show the continued artistic growth and development in so many different areas that Lerner demonstrates...he truly is a Renaissance man." Living and working in Manhattan in the early 50's he can still remember when the subway cost a nickel to ride on. He can also remember his fingernails turning brown from the developer used in processing photographic prints. He has transitioned from the wet darkroom to the digital darkroom and at the same time still using the ancient technique of using a brush to apply pigment on a canvas surface. He feels that he has the best of both worlds and in his 90's, he is still looking for new things to explore that is beyond digital while practicing some of the old.