Fred Berger Dedication Introduction

Chicago allegorical figurative artist Fred Berger, 83, of Chicago IL. passed away Thursday night, March 23rd at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston Illinois. Fred Berger was born in 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Marshall High School in 1942, attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1942-43 and earned a B.S. degree at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1952. Fred Berger’s early career experience included work as commercial artist from 1953-1970. During this time, Berger worked for his brother Sol Berger as a designer of point of purchase displays. Fred then moved on to a teaching career which spanned 30 years at several of Chicago’s major art institutions. These included the Chicago Academy of Fine Art from 1971-1977 ( where he was also chair of the Department of Fine Art (1977-78), Evanston Art Center (1971-1979), Columbia College (1977 – 1979), the Figurative Art League in Evanston , Illinois (1978 – 1979) and the American Academy of Art (1972 – 1990). During these years, Berger also taught private lessons to eager art students who wished to deepen their knowledge in artistic human anatomy, perspective, drawing, painting, and composition. Through his teaching, Fred Berger has instilled a passion for the discipline of figure drawing and an appreciation of drawing as a serious art form. To those who knew him closely, the artist was known to execute an incredible multitude of figural gesture drawings to work out the narrative and compositional challenges engendered in the pursuit of a completed visual statement or theme. For Fred, the process of developing a work of art was just as engaging and creative as the execution of the completed painting for which his figure studies were intended. Fred’s greatest contribution to the art world was his powerful artwork. His art was deeply influenced by the artists of Renaissance and Baroque periods especially Michelangelo and Peter Paul Rubens. Although his artwork was rooted in the traditional methods of drawing and painting of past centuries, Fred always strove to create figurative artwork that spoke to the human condition within the contemporary world. His paintings and drawings are in many private collections in Chicago and are included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1998, Fred’s artwork was hosted at the Chicago Cultural Center. Most recently, Fred received the Margaret Klimek Phillips fellowship grant and was honored in their publication which featured fellow grant recipients. Even more important then his artwork was his marriage of sixty years to his dear and loving wife Gene Berger. Never has there ever been such a beautiful bond and friendship between two lovers. Also surviving are his son Dylon Berger and his wife Irene.