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What's Brewing

He loved Ybor; he loved art

By SUSAN THURSTON
Published January 20, 2006

	[Photo/illustration: David Audet]
	Chuck Gruber, was an art collector who bought works from artists in Ybor City during the 1980s. This colorized photo of Gruber was was done by artist David Audet.
	IF YOU GO: The Chuck Gruber Memorial Exhibition & Art Auction starts at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28 at the Brad Cooper Gallery, 1712 E Seventh Ave., in Ybor City. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door and include wine and hors d'oeuvres. For information, call 248-6098.

Like a lot of us, Chuck Gruber came to Florida for the sunshine. Decades later, he stuck around for the artists in Ybor City.

Raised in New York City, he worked in the fabric, banking and securities industries, earning enough to splurge on what he really loved to do: buy art.

He seldom, if ever, picked up a paintbrush, but he had a lifelong passion for the arts thanks to his parents, avid collectors.

While here, Gruber amassed about 300 drawings, photographs, paintings and ceramic pieces, nearly all by artists who kept Ybor alive in the 1980s. He considered each piece an extension of its creator and a marker of unduplicated time.

A large portion of his collection goes up for auction Jan. 28 at the Brad Cooper Gallery on Seventh Avenue, one of Gruber's beloved hangouts. Gruber wanted the works to live on long after he did.

Gruber died Aug. 7 at age 67. Although heart problems plagued him for years, his death came unexpectedly. Word filtered slowly among his artsy friends, who remembered Gruber as a loyal supporter of Ybor before the bars, the streetcar and Centro Ybor.

"I don't know anyone else who was always here and bought so much art," said longtime friend Brad Cooper. "He was one of those people who would call you to say, "I'm not going to be able to make your opening.' "

That was rare then. It's even more rare today.

Gruber bought art from people he knew. Some went on to be well-known in the art world, others did not. A lot of the pieces weren't technically brilliant, but they reflected the artist and unconventional mind-set at the time.

"Chuck was bohemian at heart," said Angelica Diaz, now an Old Seminole Heights restaurant owner who introduced Gruber to the Ybor art scene. "He loved what was happening there. He became a part of the family."

Gruber was a fixture at gallery openings, held in artists' live/work spaces in rundown storefronts. He held potlucks at his apartment off Bayshore Boulevard, where artwork covered the walls, from floor to ceiling.

"He loved Ybor. It was different from most places in Tampa," said Patricia Callihan, a painter who dated Gruber for a few years after he moved to Florida. "He liked to hang out with artists."

He preferred Jack Daniel's over water and never caught the exercise bug, despite his friends' urgings. Buying art got his adrenaline going instead.

"He was a wonderful, smiling happy man," said David Audet, a photographer and special projects manager at Hillsborough Community College. "He drank to excess. He ate to excess. But he was tender and sensitive."

Audet met Gruber in the "fog of the '80s" when the Rough Riders bar was Ybor's version of Cheers. For a while, Audet lived in a $80-a-month apartment, with a communal bathroom, above what's now King Corona.

Gruber used to come to get-togethers at the place they called Upstairs South. They'd stay up late partying and talking art. Gruber loved Audet's colorized photos and included many in his collection.

Gruber's artistic heap features works by John Costin, David Dye, Rocky Kester, the late Roddy Reed, Amanda Slaz and Tony Eitharong, several of whom still work in Ybor. Sorting through the pieces has been emotional, Cooper said.

"It stirs up a lot of feelings about the past," he said.

Cooper hopes the Tampa Museum of Art takes an interest in Eitharong's graphite on paper portrait of Gruber and his former wife, Mary Jane Walker, for the museum's permanent collection. It would be a fitting tribute, Cooper said, to a local role model for art collecting.

Gruber's pieces will be on display at Cooper's gallery all next week. A tribute service to Gruber will start at 7 p.m. Jan. 28, followed by the auction at 8 p.m. Prices will start as low as $30 to $60.

Proceeds will go to Gruber's son, Andrew, who lives in Chicago. A small portion will go to the gallery for future exhibitions. Expect lots of 20-year-old framed photographs and drawings, several of them nudes, from artists experimenting with their craft.

A lot of his old friends are expected to laugh and share stories.

"I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of us," Audet said. "He should have had it before he died."

THE LAST DROP: Here's a clever idea anyone could have come up with. Realtor Gail Bernucca included 2-cent stamps in her latest marketing mailer for all her clients too busy to stand in line for new stamps.

- Susan Thurston can be reached at 226-3394 or thurston@sptimes.com

The Chuck Gruber Memorial Exhibition & Art Auction starts at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28 at the Brad Cooper Gallery, 1712 E Seventh Ave., in Ybor City. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door and include wine and hors d'oeuvres. For information, call 248-6098.

[Last modified January 19, 2006, 08:43:07]