Heavily influenced by Western modern art and Eastern spiritualism, the work of Max Gimblett displays broad technical and stylistic range following his storied life experiences. Gimblett was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1935, but has lived and worked in the United States since 1965. Between 1962 and 1964, Gimblett trained as a potter in Toronto, later studying drawing at the Ontario College of Art. Gimblett then moved to San Francisco in 1965 to study painting at the San Francisco Arts Institute, where he experimented with a wide range of styles, following such masters and examples as Willem de Kooning (1904–1997), Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), David Hockney (b. 1937), and even miniature paintings of the Mughal Empire (1526–1857). Through Abstract Expressionism, Gimblett became intrigued with the calligraphic gesture, which led him to East Asian painting, particularly the works of Japanese monk-painter Sengai Gibon (1750–1837). Gimblett has since dedicated himself to the study of Zen visual and spiritual practices, and was confirmed as a monk of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism in 2006. From these diverse influences, Gimblett has developed his own painting voice that speaks to both Zen dialectics and Western modernism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the artist first began to use triangles, circles, and squares painted in bold, calligraphic strokes in his work for their spiritual connotations, particularly with regard to his ensō, hand-drawn circles that symbolize the universe in Zen through one, swift stroke. Gimblett has since been known for rendering various leitmotifs in ink or metallic paint such as quatrefoils, skulls, lines, bridges, and paint splatters.

Gimblett has lived and worked in New York since 1972, but has recently begun to split his studio practice between New York and Auckland, New Zealand. He has exhibited extensively across Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. His works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Auckland Museum, New Zealand; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia; Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, Los Angeles; Malmö Konsthall, Sweden; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia; and many other venues.

CEJ