Gary T. Erbe
self taught American painter best known for trompe l'oeil technique (born 1944)
Gary T. Erbe (born 1944) is an American oil painter. He is self-taught, and he is best known for his trompe-l'œils. His work has been exhibited at the Canton Museum of Art, the Brinton Museum, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the Heckscher Museum of Art, the Baum School of Art and the Reading Public Museum.
Background
Erbe's interest in art began at a young age when he became fascinated by the illustrations in his school textbooks. Erbe's stepfather, Frank Schaefer, encouraged and supported Erbe's interest in art and bought him his first art set. When Erbe was fifteen, his stepfather died and, in the following decade, Erbe produced very little art.
At age sixteen, Erbe dropped out of school, and moved into a studio apartment in Weehawken, New Jersey. Shortly after, Erbe met Edny, whom he married in 1963. One year later, she and Erbe had their first child, Kim, and five years later had their second child, contemporary artist Chantell Van Erbé. To support his family, Erbe worked as an apprentice at an engraving company and painted in his spare time.
“Gary T. Erbe” enters the record as self taught American painter best known for trompe l'oeil technique (born 1944). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gary, Erbe and self can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q59180096. VIAF identifies the subject as 1559753. The Library of Congress control number is n88103449. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944 and 1963.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gary T. Erbe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.