Gary Kott

My secret life as an artist began when I was a Hollywood scriptwriter and producer
of award-winning television shows. Though I was embedded in the world of high-powered
superstars, agents and studio executives my hero was the wife of a fellow
producer who had a tiny art studio in the wings of their sprawling New York City coop.
The beauty she created and her humble lack of need for attention and notoriety
awed me. While her husband and I were written about in newspapers, honored by
our colleges, walked the red carpet she was wholly satisfied with quietly creating
her art and possibly getting a show in an obscure, downtown gallery.
A year later I silently launched my secret life as an artist. While working on a hit TV
show I bought a house with loads of blank walls and no art. At first I was upset
when I discovered that the previous owner had left a stack of eight-foot by ten-foot
sheets of plywood in the basement. A week before I’d seen a large, expensive
painting in a SoHo Gallery, a bold color field of red and black. Hmm, I thought, these
sheets of plywood were exactly the same size. A quick trip to the local art supply
store and I had my first color field hanging over my bed, joined soon by eight-foot by
ten-foot ...

From twenty-one years old until now Gary Kott has achieved success and notoriety in the creative worlds of Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Fine Art, and Live Theatre. During its five years of number one ratings Kott was Writer/Supervising Producer of groundbreaking The Cosby Show, working on 124 episodes, writing or co-writing 55 scripts, and appearing twice in small roles. Other hit shows Kott wrote for are The White Shadow, Fame, Remington Steele, Hotel, along with TV pilots for every major network plus two feature film scripts. Kott’s efforts in Hollywood have brought him a Peabody Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, a People’s Choice Award, an NAACP Image Award, an Emmy nomination, and two Humanitas Prize nominations.

Prior to working in Hollywood Kott was a young copywriter at renowned Madison Avenue advertising agencies Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam. He wrote and produced many national commercials for the likes of Merrill Lynch, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Nationwide Insurance, several recognized by the annual Clio Awards. Kott’s youthful advertising efforts were rewarded with a promotion to Vice President and Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather. Along the way Kott began writing stage plays that have been ...

2016 continues to be a very busy and successful year for my artwork. Two of my paintings have been selected for the upcoming show, “Animal Magnetism,” curated by Karen and Tony Barone, to be held at the University of California, Riverside this October. In March my painting “Veer” was sold on opening night in an exhibition sponsored by the Palm Springs Art Museum Artists Council. For the second year in a row my work was selected for the Rancho Mirage Artists Studio Tour. Five pieces of my artwork, three paintings and two sculptures, were held over at Smith Vargas Fine Art in Palm Springs after a successful featured-artist show there during Modernism Week. My solo show at the Cathedral City Chamber of Commerce ran for three months.