Jason Berger
Encyclopedia
Jason Berger was a Boston landscape painter, connected to Boston Expressionism http://www.danforthmuseum.org/boston_expressionism.html#pastexhibitsbostonexpression. He painted from nature, en plein air
, and used favorite motifs in abstract paintings, referred to as "studio paintings". He, also, enjoyed woodcuts which were predominatly printed in black and white. Known for his humor, love of jazz, and his upbeat approach to painting, “his work expresses the joy of life and love of place”.
from Lithuania
and Latvia
, on his mother’s side, and from Russia
and Lithuania on his father’s side. Speaking only Yiddish till the age of three, he grew up in the Boston suburbs and attended Roxbury Memorial High School. Encouraged by his mother and uncle, J.P.Savel, illustrator for the Boston Post, Berger’s interest and passion in painting were evident very early. As a teen in the mid-nineteen thirties, he painted en plein air regularly emulating the influences he saw in Boston. His love of the old masters, the immediate approach of the watercolors of John Singer Sergeant and Winslow Homer
, and the current trends of Modernism
, Cubism
and Abstraction
were the influences that would stay with him throughout his life.
At a young age, he frequented the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston and haunted the Boston Public Library, reading all he could on painting and painting techniques. His focus on painting was recognized during high school by acceptance to the “Vocational Art Classes” at the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston where he studied drawing and composition in the afternoons. With this preparation, he received a full scholarship to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston in 1941. Karl Zerbe
, the principle painting teacher at the school, thought Berger and his classmates, Reed Kay, Jack Kramer, David Aronson
, and George Sheridan were among best students.
Karl Zerbe, a German citizen, received his position at the Museum School in 1937 after a year at Harvard University. Like Hans Hoffman, who immigrated in the 1930’s to New York City, Karl Zerbe brought the tenets of European Modernism to Boston. “For eager young Americans, most of whom had traveled little—and constrained in the 1930s by the Depression and in the 1940s by World War II and its aftermath—contact with Hofmann (and Zerbe) served as an invaluable alternative for direct contact with the European sources of Modernism”.
Unlike Hoffman, whose emphasis was in abstraction and initiated the Abstract Expressionists, Zerbe was well rooted in the expressionism and spawned the Boston Expressionists. Associated with the Boston Expressionists are Jack Levine
, Hyman Bloom
, Kahlil Gibran, as well as, Zerbe’s students-Jason Berger, David Aronson
, Reed Kay, Jack Kramer, Bernie Chaet, Arthur Polonsky
, and George Sheridan. In the 1940’s, the Expressionist enthusiasm in Boston would materialize in exhihibitions of Max Beckmann
, Chaim Soutine
, Oscar Kokoschka, Marc Chagall
, and James Ensor
before they were exhibited in New York City.
World War II
interrupted Berger’s college education with three years in the Army, 1943-1946. Returning from the war, he graduated from college in 1948. Afterwards, with a traveling scholarship awarded by the School of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, Berger went to Europe with his first wife, the painter Marilyn Powers. In addition to the European Traveling Fellowship, Berger received several awards, including the Grand Prize for Painting from Jacques Lipchitz
at the Boston Arts Festival in 1956 and the Clarissa Bartlett Traveling Award in 1957. While in France, Berger studied with cubist sculptor Ossip Zadkine
in Paris and frequented Georges Braque
’s studio. He also met Matisse and absorbed the direct influences of Bonnard, Dufy, Picasso, and Soutine.
Upon his return to the United States, Berger began teaching first at Mount Holyoke College (1955), and then enjoyed a long tenure teaching at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston (1956-69). He taught briefly at Wellesley College (1957-59), The State University of New York at Buffalo (1969-70) and The Metropolitan College at Boston University (1971-72). Until his retirement, he taught at the Art Institute of Boston (1973-88).
During the summers, the Bergers traveled and painted en plein air in France
, Mexico
, and Portugal
. After his wife, Marilyn Powers, died in 1976 of cancer, he returned to Portugal where he met Estela Cuoto who became his second wife in 1978. They eventually moved to Portugal in 1994. Berger lost his second wife, Estela, in 1997. Berger remained in Portugal, where he eventually married the painter Leena Rekola in 1999. The couple moved back to Boston, Massachusetts, in March 2008. He died in October 2010.
Berger continued to work directly from nature until his death, always putting the "picture first and feeding nature into it". This focus on combining the formal elements of color, shape and compositional scheme to make a good picture, never interfered with an overall joy of discovery through the act of painting. His approach was direct, his vision clear, and his paintings full of structural elegance, with the results a positive and optimistic expression.
, New York City; Guggenheim Museum
, New York City, folder list#000565;http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/library-and-archives/archive-collections/A0009/ Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA http://www.mfa.org/search/collections?keyword=Jason+Berger Boston Sheraton, Boston Massachusetts; Chase National Bank, New York City; Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA http://www.danforthmuseum.org/collection.html; Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, PA http://hoytartcenter.org/; Rockefeller Medical Center, New York City, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Simmons College, Boston, MA and Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA.; The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
, NYC http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/2069/releases/MOMA_1956_0050_40A.pdf?2010; Addison Gallery of American Art
, Andover, MA; Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA; DeCordova Museum
and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA; Fitchburg Museum of Art, Fitchburg, MA; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester, MA. He has also exhibited widely in France, Mexico and Portugal.
The Danforth Museum - Jason Berger: Directed Vision http://www.danforthmuseum.org/jason_berger.html
Art New England - Jason Berger: Boston Expressionist by Debbie Hagan http://legacy.artnewengland.com/issues/Feb_Mar_2009/boston-expressionist.html
Santa Fe Must See Art Shows: The Paintings of Jason Berger http://www.santafe.com/articles/must-see-art-shows-august-1-15
Obituary, by Sebastian Smee, Boston Globe, October 20, 2010, Jason Berger - http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/10/20/jason_berger_artist_painted_landscapes_and_loved_jazz/
Ernesto Mayans Gallery http://ernestomayansgallery.com/artists.html
The Art Store: Jason Berger http://www.theartstorewv.com/html/artistresults.asp?artist=2&testing=true
Framesplus Gallery - http://www.framesplus.com/paintings/berger/jblist1.htm
YouTube – Jason Berger Painter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC45tLrjV7k
En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...
, and used favorite motifs in abstract paintings, referred to as "studio paintings". He, also, enjoyed woodcuts which were predominatly printed in black and white. Known for his humor, love of jazz, and his upbeat approach to painting, “his work expresses the joy of life and love of place”.
Biography
Born in Malden, Massachusetts, Berger was the son of first generation JewsJews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
from Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
and Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, on his mother’s side, and from Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Lithuania on his father’s side. Speaking only Yiddish till the age of three, he grew up in the Boston suburbs and attended Roxbury Memorial High School. Encouraged by his mother and uncle, J.P.Savel, illustrator for the Boston Post, Berger’s interest and passion in painting were evident very early. As a teen in the mid-nineteen thirties, he painted en plein air regularly emulating the influences he saw in Boston. His love of the old masters, the immediate approach of the watercolors of John Singer Sergeant and Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
, and the current trends of Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
and Abstraction
Abstraction
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
were the influences that would stay with him throughout his life.
At a young age, he frequented the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston and haunted the Boston Public Library, reading all he could on painting and painting techniques. His focus on painting was recognized during high school by acceptance to the “Vocational Art Classes” at the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston where he studied drawing and composition in the afternoons. With this preparation, he received a full scholarship to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston in 1941. Karl Zerbe
Karl Zerbe
Karl Zerbe was a German-born American painter.The works of Karl Zerbe are significant because they record "the response of a distinguished artist of basically European sensibility to the physical and cultural scene of the New World".-Biography :Karl Zerbe was born in Berlin, Germany.The family...
, the principle painting teacher at the school, thought Berger and his classmates, Reed Kay, Jack Kramer, David Aronson
David Aronson
David Aronson is a painter and Emeritus Professor of Art at Boston University.Aronson has taught at Boston University since 1955, where he formed the Fine Art Department. As an artist, he has exhibited in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Copenhagen,...
, and George Sheridan were among best students.
Karl Zerbe, a German citizen, received his position at the Museum School in 1937 after a year at Harvard University. Like Hans Hoffman, who immigrated in the 1930’s to New York City, Karl Zerbe brought the tenets of European Modernism to Boston. “For eager young Americans, most of whom had traveled little—and constrained in the 1930s by the Depression and in the 1940s by World War II and its aftermath—contact with Hofmann (and Zerbe) served as an invaluable alternative for direct contact with the European sources of Modernism”.
Unlike Hoffman, whose emphasis was in abstraction and initiated the Abstract Expressionists, Zerbe was well rooted in the expressionism and spawned the Boston Expressionists. Associated with the Boston Expressionists are Jack Levine
Jack Levine
Jack Levine was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives.-Biography:...
, Hyman Bloom
Hyman Bloom
Hyman Bloom was a painter. His work is influenced by his Jewish heritage, Eastern religions as well as artists including Altdorfer, Grunewald, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, William Blake, Rudolph Bresdin, J.M.W...
, Kahlil Gibran, as well as, Zerbe’s students-Jason Berger, David Aronson
David Aronson
David Aronson is a painter and Emeritus Professor of Art at Boston University.Aronson has taught at Boston University since 1955, where he formed the Fine Art Department. As an artist, he has exhibited in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Copenhagen,...
, Reed Kay, Jack Kramer, Bernie Chaet, Arthur Polonsky
Arthur Polonsky
Arthur Polonsky is an American draughtsman, painter and academic.Born in Lynn, Massachusetts to East European Jewish immigrants, Polonsky is a graduate of the Boston Museum School, where he was a student of Karl Zerbe. In 1947 he was a teaching assistant to Ben Shahn at the Boston Museum School...
, and George Sheridan. In the 1940’s, the Expressionist enthusiasm in Boston would materialize in exhihibitions of Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
, Chaim Soutine
Chaim Soutine
Chaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....
, Oscar Kokoschka, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, and James Ensor
James Ensor
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...
before they were exhibited in New York City.
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
interrupted Berger’s college education with three years in the Army, 1943-1946. Returning from the war, he graduated from college in 1948. Afterwards, with a traveling scholarship awarded by the School of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, Berger went to Europe with his first wife, the painter Marilyn Powers. In addition to the European Traveling Fellowship, Berger received several awards, including the Grand Prize for Painting from Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz was a Cubist sculptor.Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire...
at the Boston Arts Festival in 1956 and the Clarissa Bartlett Traveling Award in 1957. While in France, Berger studied with cubist sculptor Ossip Zadkine
Ossip Zadkine
Ossip Zadkine was a Belarusian-born artist who lived in France. He is primarily known as a sculptor, but also produced paintings and lithographs.-Early years and career:...
in Paris and frequented Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
’s studio. He also met Matisse and absorbed the direct influences of Bonnard, Dufy, Picasso, and Soutine.
Upon his return to the United States, Berger began teaching first at Mount Holyoke College (1955), and then enjoyed a long tenure teaching at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston (1956-69). He taught briefly at Wellesley College (1957-59), The State University of New York at Buffalo (1969-70) and The Metropolitan College at Boston University (1971-72). Until his retirement, he taught at the Art Institute of Boston (1973-88).
During the summers, the Bergers traveled and painted en plein air in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. After his wife, Marilyn Powers, died in 1976 of cancer, he returned to Portugal where he met Estela Cuoto who became his second wife in 1978. They eventually moved to Portugal in 1994. Berger lost his second wife, Estela, in 1997. Berger remained in Portugal, where he eventually married the painter Leena Rekola in 1999. The couple moved back to Boston, Massachusetts, in March 2008. He died in October 2010.
Berger continued to work directly from nature until his death, always putting the "picture first and feeding nature into it". This focus on combining the formal elements of color, shape and compositional scheme to make a good picture, never interfered with an overall joy of discovery through the act of painting. His approach was direct, his vision clear, and his paintings full of structural elegance, with the results a positive and optimistic expression.
Collections
Berger’s work can be found in numerous private collections, as well as in the permanent collections of many institutions which include: Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York City; Guggenheim Museum
Guggenheim Museum
Guggenheim Museum may refer to:* The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, United States* The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy* The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain* The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas, United States...
, New York City, folder list#000565;http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/library-and-archives/archive-collections/A0009/ Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA http://www.mfa.org/search/collections?keyword=Jason+Berger Boston Sheraton, Boston Massachusetts; Chase National Bank, New York City; Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA http://www.danforthmuseum.org/collection.html; Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, PA http://hoytartcenter.org/; Rockefeller Medical Center, New York City, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Simmons College, Boston, MA and Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA.; The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Exhibitions
A prolific painter, Berger began exhibiting while still a student with Boris Mirski Gallery and Swetzoff Gallery, as well as the Institute of Modern Art (now Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston). The latter gave him a solo exhibition in 1950. The artist has also exhibited in a number of museums, including The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, NYC http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/2069/releases/MOMA_1956_0050_40A.pdf?2010; Addison Gallery of American Art
Addison Gallery of American Art
The Addison Gallery of American Art, as a department of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, is an academic museum dedicated to collecting American art...
, Andover, MA; Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA; DeCordova Museum
DeCordova Museum
The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a sculpture park and art museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts focused on modern and contemporary art, and holds a collection focused on work in all media, especially works by artists with connections to New England...
and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA; Fitchburg Museum of Art, Fitchburg, MA; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester, MA. He has also exhibited widely in France, Mexico and Portugal.
External Links
Jason Berger Web Site - http://www.jasonbergerpainter.comThe Danforth Museum - Jason Berger: Directed Vision http://www.danforthmuseum.org/jason_berger.html
Art New England - Jason Berger: Boston Expressionist by Debbie Hagan http://legacy.artnewengland.com/issues/Feb_Mar_2009/boston-expressionist.html
Santa Fe Must See Art Shows: The Paintings of Jason Berger http://www.santafe.com/articles/must-see-art-shows-august-1-15
Obituary, by Sebastian Smee, Boston Globe, October 20, 2010, Jason Berger - http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/10/20/jason_berger_artist_painted_landscapes_and_loved_jazz/
Ernesto Mayans Gallery http://ernestomayansgallery.com/artists.html
The Art Store: Jason Berger http://www.theartstorewv.com/html/artistresults.asp?artist=2&testing=true
Framesplus Gallery - http://www.framesplus.com/paintings/berger/jblist1.htm
YouTube – Jason Berger Painter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC45tLrjV7k