Eugene Berman
Russian, 1899-1972 (active United States and France)
Composition I, 1940
watercolor and ink on paper
9 1/2 x 12 1/2 in.
SBMA, Gift of Wright S. Ludington
1944.2.1
Eugene Berman - a photo on Flickriver
"Almost everything today requires re-examination, re-discovery of values and new experimentation,
even when the acknowledged purpose is to go back for inspiration to a formality of art forms
created in previous epochs.… Never before did we have so much material to confront us, to confuse
us, and to drive us to despair." - Eugene Berman in Saturday Review, October 27, 1957, p. 47.
RESEARCH PAPER
Compositions I & II seem similar in composition and mood. The mood is mournful and the feeling rather dream like. Colors in both are subdued - recessing from golds and rusts in horizontal bands through blues, greys and violets — giving a feeling of quiet calmness and the illusion of infinite depth to the landscape. The white billowy puffs of cloud formation give the only contrast and brightness - Are they clouds though or distant cities? What's happening here? Nothing seems to be happening now — but a lot seems to have happened and left behind it a waste land, inhabited by melancholy destitute figures who pause wearily to rest or take a drink
Eugene Berman — was born in Russia at the turn of the century, He began studying art as a teenager in St. Petersburg, where his teacher was also an architect. The tremendously impressive and flamboyant architecture of this Old-World city had a lasting impact on his work and studies. The vicissitudes of the Russian Revolution, brought him and his family in 1918 to Paris and poverty. The homelessness and separation which befell him at that time also became a recurrent theme in his work. His figures, while not anguished or desperate, are always forlorn and sad. Nobody smiles in Berman's paintings. 'Nobody enjoys himself. He sleeps on the ground or stands with his back to you looking passively at beautiful destruction and magnificent distance. Berman continued his study of art in France Italy and in the 1920's aligned himself with a group of other young "Neo-Romantic" painters who were influenced by the blue and rose periods of Picasso.
The word "Romantic" immediately involves us in mystery and misapprehension. Characteristic of the virtues and also the faults of romantic art - it is out of step with today, any today, and communicates only with yesterdays and tomorrows.
What has happened to these people? What will happen to them? Where is he going? (Figure in Composition III) Where has he been?
The young artist leaned from the Italian painter de Chirico (who also influenced the Surrealists of the day) who had contrived to organize in a single canvas apparently disparate elements of time and space. Berman drew profusely, sketching everything that interested his eye without worrying how, where or when they would combine into a definite painting. He compiled sketches of facades and interiors, landscapes and cityscapes, from nature and museums and back again. In his studio, he would combine these sketches to give expression to his dreams, memories, emotions, fantasies and invention.
He developed a liberal drawing technique. His line is nervous and broken, never fully defining a form which must change from second to second into motion and a new outline, yet always retaining a complete legibility. Such line when combined with flourishes of wash modelling is said to be the essence of great baroque drawing.
In 1935 Berman took his first trip to the United States and two years later was to take out citizenship papers - becoming an American citizen in 1944. In 1938, he traveled to California to execute murals in the home of Wright Ludington of Santa Barbara. The colors of the American west, particularly the Arizona deserts, the forms of rock and stone in Monument Valley and the figures of the American Indians were added to his portfolio of experiences and images after that time. The people and architecture of Mexico also made their impression as he traveled there twice on Guggenheim fellowships. Composition IV seems to illustrate that influence.
Much of the rest of Berman's career was devoted to designing scenery and costumes for the theater, which he began in 1936. His mastery of figures, perspective and illusion, architectural structure, detail and ornament enabled him to become one of this century's most successful designers for the Ballet and the Operatic Stage. He died in Rome 1n 1972.
These four paintings were loaned by our Museum to the Los Angeles County Museumo0f Art in 1956 to be shown in an exhibition entitled "Costume Design for Theatre". But I have not discovered any claim that they are actually theatre designs. They may have been used only as a representation of the artist’s work.
Prepared by Carole Clarke for the Docent Council of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. September, 1982
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Julun Levy and Eugene Berman, "Eugene Berman", American Studio Books, New York and London, ca. 1947
Russell Lynes and Eugene Berman, "The Graphic Work of Eugene Berman", Clarkson N. Patter, Inc., New York, 1971
Catalogues of the Retrospective Exhibition of his Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations and Designs, Institute of Modern Art, Boston, A October, 1941 through May, 1942
COMMENTS
Russian painter and stage designer. His family moved to Western Europe in 1908 and his basic training
was in Germany, Switzerland and France (apart from a brief residence in St Petersburg in 1914–18,
when he received lessons in art from the painter Pavel Naumov and the architect Sergey Gruzenberg).
In 1919 he enrolled at the Académie Ranson in Paris, attending courses under Edouard Vuillard and
Maurice Denis, and two years later he exhibited at the Galerie Druet, Paris. From the late 1930s
Berman worked increasingly in the USA, creating designs for ballet and other musical productions, for
example for the Music Festival in Hartford, CT, in 1936. In spite of his cosmopolitan background,
Berman maintained close connections with Russian artists, critics and dancers, collaborating, for
example, with Serge Lifar on the production of Icare in Monte Carlo in 1938.
Berman lived in France from 1918 to 1939, although he also spent long periods in Italy, manifesting a
particular interest in Renaissance art and architecture, which he interpreted in his studio paintings,
some of which were shown at his one-man show at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1932 (e.g.
View of Venice (Sleepers, Statue and Campanile), 1932; see 1941–2 exh. cat., no. 14). During the 1930s
Berman followed a more magical, Surrealist style, often reminiscent of the work of Salvador Dalí, a
development reflected in his whimsical costume and stage designs for the ballet Devil’s Holiday
produced by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in 1939
(original designs: New York, MOMA). He also expressed his rich fantasy in the fashion designs that he
created for the magazine Vogue in the same period. After the 1930s he continued to produce oil
paintings exploring the same themes in a style approaching Pittura Metafisica (e.g. Rome, 1954;
Minneapolis, MN, Walker A. Cent.). Berman’s brother Leonid Berman (b 1896) was a marine, landscape
and figure painter, also active in Paris.
Bibliography
Eugene Berman (exh. cat.; Boston, Inst. Mod. A.; Hartford, CT, Wadsworth Atheneum; Chicago,
A. Club; Portland, A. Mus.; 1941–2)
Eugene Berman (exh. cat., Buenos Aires, Inst. A. Mod., 1950)
Obituary, New York Times (15 Dec 1972)
Eugene Berman in Perspective (exh. cat., Austin, U. TX, A. Mus., 1975) [selections from the
Robert L. Tobin Col.]
- John E. Bowlt, "Berman, Eugene", Grove Art Online, 2003