Karl Zerbe (September 16, 1903 – November 24, 1972)[1][2] was a German-born American painter and educator.
The family lived in Paris, France, from 1904 to 1914, where his father was an executive in an electrical supply concern.
From 1937 until 1955, Zerbe was the head of the Department of Painting, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
He was grouped together with the Boston artists Kahlil Gibran (sculptor), Jack Levine and Hyman Bloom as a key member of the Boston Expressionist school of painting,[5] and through his teaching influenced a generation of painters,[6][7] including, among others, David Aronson, Bernard Chaet, Reed Kay, Arthur Polonsky, Jack Kramer, Barbara Swan, Andrew Kooistra, and Lois Tarlow.
[8] His works are thought significant because they record "the response of a distinguished artist of basically European sensibility to the physical and cultural scene of the New World".