After being demobilized Gerrard studied at the Manchester School of Art in 1919 and at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1920 where Henry Tonks was his teacher and contemporaries included Samuel Rabinovitch. In 1925, Tonks appointed Gerrard head of the school's sculpture department, a position he held until 1948 after which he was Professor of Sculpture until 1968 and then emeritus professor. In the 1920s, Gerrard elected to wear a standard set of clothes – sports jacket, corduroy trousers, a collarless shirt and a yellow stock. He bought multiple copies of these items and wore them regularly for decades.
