William Berry

William Augustus Berry (born September 29, 1933, Jacksonville, Texas; died January 3, 2010, Columbia, Missouri) was an author, artist, and professor of art, known for his illustrations and colored pencil drawings.

Professional career Berry earned a BFA at the University of Texas, Austin in 1955 and an MFA from the University of Southern California in 1957. Subsequently, he worked as an illustrator and painter in New York City.

In 1968, Berry began teaching art at the University of Texas, Austin, While teaching at UT Austin, he wrote his seminal textbook: Drawing The Human Form, a book widely adopted by art departments across the country and cited as "excellent" by art historian Ernst Gombrich.

From 1974 to 1978, Berry taught graphic design and illustration at Boston University, School of Visual Arts. In 1978, he became Professor of Art at the University of Missouri in Columbia He served as chair for the department from 1995 to 1999.

Exhibitions and awards Berry's artwork has been in over 500 exhibitions, in the U.S. and abroad, receiving over 100 awards and prizes. United States Information Agency Gallery, Athens, Greece; Espace Reduit, Cassis, France; and the Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco. the Addison Gallery, Andover, MA; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks; the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, PA; Journey to the Arctic, Still Quiet on the Western Front, and Kennedy Without Tears.

Berry has twice been profiled in the American Artist Magazine and is listed in Who's Who in American Art.

Art Residencies Berry's honors include: fellowships and artist-in-residencies at the Altos de Chavon Foundation, Dominican Republic; the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH; the Rockefeller Foundation, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy; Lacoste School of the Arts, France; Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA; and the Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France.

During these residencies, Berry, utilizing colored pencils, a cross-hatching technique and limited palette, created a series of still-life drawings focusing on the effect of light on geometric solids, which he constructed from paper. Drawing the solids axonometrically in order to "distance the viewer", Berry introduced objects from everyday life such as knives, pencils, or fruit, into his compositions. Berry wrote that the "geometric solids represent an intrusion of the ideal form of a truly Platonic type into the real world of objects.... a visual event that I find poetic and intriguing. It is the underlying theme in many of my drawings and is intended to make a metaphysical statement."

Late Work Upon his retirement from teaching, Berry continued to be prolific - merging long-used techniques with new emphasis on combining computer-based images, photography, collage, and watercolor. His subject matter echoed earlier themes: still life, European architecture, political images, imaginary landscapes, and self-portraits, which number in the hundreds.

Berry's late works were executed in a loose style and expressive manner, which inadvertently document the progression of Parkinson's disease-related symptoms.

Artist's website: http://www.williamaberry.com