Henrietta Berk
{{Short description|American painter (1919–1990)}}
{{Infobox artist
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Henrietta Berk
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| image = Photo of Henrietta Berk.jpg
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| birth_name = Henrietta Robin
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1919|01|9}}
| birth_place = Wichita, Kansas, US
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1990|01|15|1919|01|09}}
| death_place = Oakland, California, US
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| alma_mater = California College of Arts and Crafts
| known_for = Painting
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| style =
| movement = Abstract expressionism, Bay Area Figurative Movement
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- Morris Berk
- Paul Farberman
}}
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Henrietta Berk (January 9, 1919 – January 15, 1990) was a painter in the San Francisco Bay Area whose work was part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement taking place in the mid-20th century. Her oil paintings were noted for their strong colors and shapes.{{cite web|title=About|url=http://www.henriettaberk.com/about|website=The Henrietta Berk Research Project|publisher=Steven Stern Fine Arts|accessdate=31 March 2018}}
Early life and education
Henrietta Robin was born in Wichita, Kansas. She and her siblings spent some of their childhood at the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home in San Francisco, after their father left the family and their mother, a seamstress, could not support a family.{{Cite news |last=Gottschalk |first=Marina |date=1990-01-18 |title=Henrietta Berk dies at 71; widely known local artist |pages=35 |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115267201/henrietta-berk-dies-at-71-widely-known/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} She attended the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland from 1955 to 1959,{{cite book|author=Thomas Albright|title=Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980: An Illustrated History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aGN3vXcZl74C&pg=PA261|year=1985|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-05193-5|page=261}}{{cite web|title=Henrietta Berk|url=http://www.askart.com/artist/Henrietta_Berk/65478/Henrietta_Berk.aspx|website=askART|accessdate=31 March 2018}} where she studied with Richard Diebenkorn and Harry Krell.
Career
Berk was known for intensely-colored landscapes, portraits, still life and abstract compositions.{{Cite news |date=1964-04-05 |title=Contra Costa Shows Prove Remarkable |pages=183 |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115271632/contra-costa-shows-prove-remarkable/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} Her paintings were described as "refreshing in their candor, warm, colorful, exciting with enormous vitality and vibrating with her dominant personality," in the words of one admirer. "With all her squeezed-from-the-tube, knifed-on impastos, there is discipline in her structure, a balance in the pull of color, of texture, an equilibrium of horizontals, verticals, and receding planes and a constant shift from surface to deep space," commented another reviewer in 1972.{{Cite news |last=Cross |first=Miriam Dungan |date=1968-02-25 |title=Eastbay Women Brighten San Francisco Art Scene |pages=148 |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115269309/eastbay-women-brighten-san-francisco/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} Berk decorated her home with her own paintings,{{Cite news |last=Seidkin |first=Phyllis |date=1964-03-01 |title=Home in Oakland |pages=56, [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28326458/oaklandtribune196426p60/ 60] |work=The San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115271354/home-in-oaklandphyllis-seidkin/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} and works by Berk were part of the US Embassy's art library. Her works were also seen in the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967).
Berk held her first one-woman show in 1959.{{Cite news |date=1959-10-25 |title=Oakland Artist |pages=94 |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115275171/oakland-artist/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news |date=1990-01-19 |title=Henrietta Berk, Oakland painter |pages=22 |work=The San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115274665/henrietta-berk-oakland-painter/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} Beginning in 1960, her artwork was exhibited at galleries and museums throughout California, including the San Francisco Museum of Art, Oakland Museum, de Young Museum, The Carter Gallery, and the de Saisset Museum. In 1972 she traveled to Israel on a study mission for the Jewish Welfare Federation of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and made pen-and-ink drawings to benefit the United Jewish Welfare Fund.{{Cite news |date=1973-04-04 |title=Magnus Museum slates Henrietta Berk show |pages=11 |work=The Berkeley Gazette |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115274296/magnus-museum-slates-henrietta-berk-show/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} 1974 she traveled to Mexico City as a guest of the Mexico Travel Association, and made pen-and-ink drawings of her travels for the Oakland Tribune.{{Cite news |date=1974-07-21 |title=A City of Marvelous Beauty |pages=81 |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115272358/a-city-of-marvelous-beauty/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}}
In her later life, diabetic retinopathy affected Berk's vision,{{Cite news |last=Ghent |first=Janet |date=1989-03-14 |title=Portrait of a Great Late Bloomer |pages=C1, [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115276689/berk-continued/ C2] |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115276425/portrait-of-a-great-late-bloomerjanet/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} and she was described as a blind artist. "I can't drive and I can't read very well, but I can paint," she explained in 1988.{{Cite news |last=Ghent |first=Janet |date=1988-12-27 |title=Images that may be only memories |pages=C1, [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115274148/images-continued/ C2] |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115272843/images-that-may-be-only-memoriesjanet/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} In 1989 she marked her 70th birthday with a one-woman show at Interart Gallery in San Francisco. "Because I'm seeing less, it forces me to work large, have more contrast and make a bolder statement," she told an interviewer in 1989.
Personal life and legacy
Robin married twice. Her first husband was physician Morris Berk; they married in 1939{{Cite news |date=1939-12-12 |title=Reno: Marriage Licenses Issued |pages=21 |work=The San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115275499/reno-marriage-licenses-issued/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} and 1944,{{Cite news |date=1944-07-29 |title=Births and Marriages |pages=13 |work=The San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115275689/births-and-marriages/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} had two children, Anne and Steven, and divorced in 1969. Her second husband was Paul Farberman; they married in 1972{{Cite news |last=Orr |first=Robin |date=1972-05-05 |title=The Social Circle |pages=29 |work=Oakland Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115276058/the-social-circlerobin-orr/ |access-date=2022-12-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} and divorced in 1973. She died in 1990, at the age of 71, in Oakland.
A retrospective exhibit of Berk's work opened at The Hilbert Museum at Chapman University on August 28, 2021, in conjunction with a book on the artist, In Living Color, The Art & Life of Henrietta Berk, developed by Steven Stern and published by Cool Titles.
References
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External links
- [http://www.henriettaberk.com/ Henrietta Berk Research Project / Steven Stern Fine Arts]
- [http://www.artnet.com/artists/henrietta-berk/ Henrietta Berk on artnet]
- [https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/337129 Henrietta Berk in RKD]
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Category:20th-century American women painters
Category:American Figurative Expressionism
Category:Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area
Category:Artists from Wichita, Kansas
Category:20th-century American painters
Category:Painters from California
Category:California College of the Arts alumni