Artist of the day: Artist of the day, December 11: William Berra, American painter

Monday, December 11, 2017

Artist of the day, December 11: William Berra, American painter

William Berra (1952) is an American painter of landscapes, figures, and still life. He is represented by galleries throughout the United States and his work is in many public and private collections. Berra has appeared in over 40 solo and group shows. William Berra lives in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains north of Santa Fe with his wife, Alanna Burke, who is his business partner and a frequent model in his paintings.

Berra spent the 1980s primarily painting Northern New Mexico en plein air. He was influenced by the Macchiaioli painters of 19th century Italy, precursors to the French practitioners of Impressionism, and he experimented with techniques to achieve their effects. One technique was that of painting on a board shellacked with an orange base. The undercoating generally warms the painting, showing through where oil paint is applied sparingly. He also placed "complementary hues side by side for maximum visual vibration."

In the 1990s, Berra began to spend more time painting in the studio, developing material gathered in plein air sketches and photographs. He expanded his horizons and his subject matter, traveling and painting landscapes in Europe, Hawaii, and throughout North America. Italy became a favorite subject. In one project, Berra spent time in Rome seeking out views painted in the mid-19th century by a favorite artist, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and other plein air painters of Grand Tour subjects. The paintings from this project were the subject of a solo exhibition in 2001.

Berra also turned his attention increasingly to figurative work. Starting with oil sketches of his wife painted on location in Europe, he developed a style that presents ambiguous figures in abstract, unresolved landscapes. He began an ongoing series of beach scenes that have become increasingly simplified and abstracted in recent years. His nude series presents a female figure either in intimate domestic settings or on utterly abstracted backgrounds.