Artist Profile

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Deborah Geurtze's deep connection to nature is reflected in her intricate prints and paintings.  Of Hudson River Dutch ancestry, she is descended from a long line of draftsmen, engravers and painters who emigrated to Albany in the mid 19th century. 

From a start during High School preparing printing plates for her uncle, a newspaper publisher in Canajoharie, she was led to the Rhode Island School of Design and to a summer internship at the museum in Blue Mountain Lake assisting the curator and living in a lean-to down by the water.  Deborah stayed-behind and hiked the Peaks, then discovered the Printmaking program at SUNY Potsdam where she completed her arts degree. 

After graduation, Deb attended the Lake Placid Workshop, refining her printing skills, and worked for the Park Agency identifying and mapping wetlands, rare plants and vistas for the Master Plan - often trekking or paddling deep into the wilderness to verify the information.  This, combined with many childhood stays in the Adirondacks, set her roots in the North Country and established a long-standing theme of her work.

Geurtze then spent a year teaching at the American School of Tangier, in Morocco. Her roof-top studio overlooked the Kasbah's "Gate of the Sea," the harbor and Gibralter, in the distance.  That was followed by a stint teaching at the Vail Mountain School in Colorado and living on the edge of the National Forest. 

Returning East, she settled in Cooperstown, set-up a 1500 pound press and began her printing career in earnest.  Along the way she started a gourmet market near the Baseball Hall of Fame and was President of the Cooperstown Art Association. Her early work centered on that area but incorporated the Susquehanna and Mohawk River Valleys, the Catskills and the Adirondacks.

Drawing on a family construction company background, Deborah restored more than a dozen and a half houses and commercial buildings, mainly in the Otsego area.  Her love for the sea led her to live-in and rehab an early 19th-century house on a high-tide island in Gloucester harbor.  Eight years ago, when a storm over-topped the causeway three times in 25 hours, Deb finally returned to the North Country.  Her studio overlooks the McKenzie Range.

Geurtze's multi-plate and hand-colored etchings, monotypes and paintings have been shown at The Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, the Cooperstown Arts Association and Smithy galleries, the Yeager at Hartwick College in Oneonta, the Everson in Syracuse, Roxbury Arts, Garrison Art Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, as well as galleries, street fairs and collections across the country.