Mid 20th Century Pat Berger Abstract Oil Painting “Piers End”, Framed

Signed: Pat Berger Titled: “Piers End” Provenance: From estate.

Pat Berger’s career spans several decades of painting that alternate between figures and landscape and are an examination of the natural landscape and social narratives.
She received her training in painting at Art Center School of Design and U.C.L.A. during World War II and absorbed paintings’ modernist concerns for expression, composition, and color-light interaction. Pat set out capturing figures in their environments expressing early on the need to capture their sense of “…being alone.” Her lifelong interest in people’s lives took her to crowded beaches, parks and boardwalks where she began recording such scenes. Berger emphasized the need to, “…create a mood or psychological element to involve the viewer”, which carried out in her acclaimed series on the homeless, surveying homeless life in the United States. In addition to her involvement with figures, Berger’s works of desert landscapes, wild plants and cacti re-emphasize her central concerns with nature and beauty.
She has been the subject of recent solo shows including the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, Santa Barbara and the University of Judaism, Los Angeles, has been the recipient of the fellowship for The Julia and David White Art Colony, Costa Rica, a National Watercolor Society Purchase Award and a California Community Foundation, Brody Arts Fund Fellowship Award. Her work was featured in the documentary video, “Not In My Neighborhood” produced by Iraj Shadaram and “Trouble in Paradise” a documentary film by Gary Glazer. Berger’s work is featured in numerous public collections including the San Diego Museum of Art, Long Beach Museum of Art, Skirball Museum, and the Palm Springs Desert Museum.
In addition to a retrospective exhibition at LA Artcore, Pat Berger recently had a solo exhibition at the Bakersfield Museum of Art (December 10-February 21, 2010) titled “From Hobos to Street People: Nowhere To Go. Paintings of the Homeless”.
– LA Artcore