Bio in Pictures

1949: Carl Mehrbach born May 13.

1958: Moves to Los Angeles, California.

1970: Begins to make paintings by copying masterworks.
Picture
Copy of Painting by Alfred Sisley, 1970
1967 - 1971: Attends the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana ―   attendance funded by full athletic scholarship (distance runner).  

1970: Paintings, with images created by Carl Mehrbach, are completed. 

1971: Graduates Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa with Bachelor of Science degree.
1971 - 1973: Attends graduate school at Oregon State University. 

Lives in Corvalis, Oregon.

Continues to paint. 

Attends Life Drawing sessions. 

1973: Graduates with Master of Science in Oceanography.
1973 - 1977: Lives in New York City. 

1973: Studies at Art Students League with Bruce Dorfman. 

1973 - 1977: Apprenticed to Seymour Leichman
1977 - 1979: Studies with Philip Guston at Boston University.

1979: Receives Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Boston University.

1977 - 1983: Lives in Brighton, Massachusetts.
1979: Marries Ellin, a dancer he met 4 years earlier at a Red Hook Brooklyn Art Party.
1980: Begins making three-dimensional abstract paintings and drawings. 

1983: Moves to Needham, Massachusetts.
1982: Birth of first son, Jesse Alexander.
1983: Birth of second son, Zachary Arthur.
1987: Moves to Lyme, New Hampshire. 

1987 - 1993: Continues to paint and draw three-dimensional abstractions.
1993: Begins to paint and draw large scale figurative works.
1994: Glenn Mehrbach & Carl Mehrbach collaborate to produce the book, "Fragile Heart": music & lyrics by Glenn. All page designs are by Carl Mehrbach; these include drawings illustrating each song, and hand-written lyrics.
1998 - 2000: Produces works representing couples interacting.
2001: Major show of figurative works at AVA Gallery, Lebanon, NH.
2002: Fantasy and reality interact in move toward inventive figurative art.
2003: Abstraction meets reality in works shown at Hopkin Center for the  Arts, Dartmouth College.
2004: Exhibits new work at Sharon Art Center in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
2005: Major exhibit of 12 paintings and 12 drawings at Bromfield Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts.
Summer 2009: "Paradise Lost" exhibited at AVA Gallery, Lebanon, New Hampshire.
Fall 2009: One Man Exhibition at the Aidron Duckworth Museum of Art, "Painting & Drawings from Summer 2009"
July 1, 2010: Retires from teaching. Becomes full time artist.

Painting "Man with Plants" completed and exhibited in AVA Gallery's "Summer Show" (Lebanon, NH)
2011: The first painting to be completed in Mehrbach's first full year of daily studio work is the large painting, "Pond"
2012: A year of summation!
Paintings and drawings look back, rather than forward.
2013: A difficult year of reassessment!
Drawings take over his oeuvre as Mehrbach looks for a personal way to see and make art.
2014: A year of renewal and surprise!
Mehrbach begins substantial, groundbreaking, large, distinctive paintings 
and drawings.
2015: The last year to be (almost) totally devoted to figurative work, although a few paintings begin the move to three-dimensional abstraction.
2016: An amazing year of transition, beginning with figurative work, ending in three-dimensional abstraction.

2017: This year is a celebration: Carl Mehrbach's art hits maturity! The substantiation is undeniable. Every painting, every drawing, every mark, in paint or pencil, exhibits profound understanding.
2018: Major One-Person Exhibition at One Brooklyn Bridge Park — 15 paintings & 20 drawings were exhibited (hosted by ChaShaMa).
2018: There has never been art made like this before! Mehrbach's art becomes fully twenty-first century -- totally observant! It is a profound rendering of ideas; it is who we are and where we have come from. This work exhibits deep knowledge of the past and profound reactions to the present.
2019: A very busy year — Three major Solo Exhibitions:
✦ AVA Gallery, Lebanon, NH
✦ Bromfield Gallery, Boston, MA
✦ Converse Free Library, Lyme NH
Mehrbach's art of 2019 was complex; it required a viewer's full engagement. The drawings and painting of 2018/19 are formal and sophisticated; their striking inventiveness, and their high skill quality, is exhausting. These works led Mehrbach to reconsidered the efficacy of intricate entanglement. The works to follow evolve toward more simple espousal. 
2020: Mehrbach's Art begins a slow slide toward figuration. As example, this 2020 painting has a complex title referencing representational ideas: "Amidst a Falling World"("Should the whole frame of nature around him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world." - Horace (65-8BC), "Odes", book 3, no.4, I.52). "Amidst a Falling World" was shown at the 70th Annual A-ONE Exhibition, the prestigious international art exhibit at Silvermine Galleries in New Canaan, Connecticut. This showing led to Carl Mehrbach becoming a Guild Member of the Silvermine Arts Center.
2024: Carl Mehrbach produces a batch of fully abstract Art, bringing this era of three-dimensional abstract paintings to conclusion, albeit with fewer and simpler forms.
2025: ​This year, Carl Mehrbach's figurative art is brimming with imaginative depth and playful profundity. These compelling works are dynamically brought to life through the seamless integration of representational imagery with abstract forms and patterns. Such a high degree of pictorial sophistication is a testament to his mastery of drawing and painting. Could this mark the beginning of a magnificent synthesis of Carl Mehrbach's accumulated knowledge and profound artistic expression?