Vera Berdich

Artist Gallery Back To Directory

Artist Details

  • Vera
  • Vera Berdick Veronika Berdich Veronica Berdick
  • Berdich
  • n/a
  • n/a
  • 1915
  • Cicero, Illinois
  • October 2003
  • Chicago, Illinois
  • Czech
  • Chicago, Illinois
  • Engraver, Etcher, Mixed Media
  • Hull House
    1946: graduated School of the Art Institute of Chicago
     
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York

    Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York

    Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    March 10-April 23, 1950: Vera Berdich, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (solo)

    June 1-July 30, 1950: Fifty-fourth Annual Exhibition of Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois: Plan for Living, color etching

    March 9-31, 1953: Current Ways with Color Prints, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    Jun 9-August 28, 1954: Artist Member Exhibition, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    March 8-24, 1955: As They Like It, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    March 31-April 28, 1962: Art to Live With: A Selection from the Joseph Randall Shapiro Student Loan Collection, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    September 26-November 11, 1972: Print Making Techniques: Past and Present, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    1995: The Unquiet Eye: Vera Berdich, A Retrospective, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois

    2008: Twilight Shadows, Printworks Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

    2010: Chicago Stories: Prints and H. C. Westermann—See America First, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

    2010: On & Of Paper: Selections from the Illinois State Museum Collection, Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
  • Art Institute of Chicago (82 works; https://www.artic.edu/collection?q=Vera%20Berdich)

    Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, California

    Library of Congress, Washington DC

    Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York: They Were All Closed,

    Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington

    Smithsonian American Art Museum Washington DC: Cain, 1933-1943, screenprint; The Flying Dutchman, 1975, color etching;  Illusion, n.d., color etching (2 versions); Ineconomy, n.d., lithograph

    Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
  • Swann, Jennifer. “A Forgotten History of the Finest Etcher in America,” fnewsmagazine, June 30, 2008. The Unquiet Eye: Vera Berdich, A Retrospective. 1995, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
  • Chicago Society of Artists
  • 1950: Clyde M. Carr Prize: Fifty-fourth Annual Exhibition of Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois: Plan for Living, color etching
  • Vera Berdich Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
  • did babysitting and housecleaning to pay for books while a student at J. Sterling Morton High School, Cicero, Illinois

    1941-?: worked for FAP/WPA

    American Steel Company during World War II

    photo retouching, Curt Teich postcard factory, Chicago, Illinois while attending night classes at School of the Art Institute of Chicago

    1947-1979: teacher, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; founded the etching department; chair of it 1947-1979; mentor to hundreds of students
  • biography on Macdowell Colony website
  • Parents were Adolph and Agnes Berdich, Czech immigrants. Sister of Lillian Berdich. The family moved frequently, following her father, a tool and die maker who wanted to live on a farm but had little experience doing so. He loved the outdoors, especially hunting and fishing, and bought property in Wisconsin sight-unseen.

    She was born to Czech immigrants in Cicero, a suburb south of Chicago. She graduated from grammar

    school in 1929 and worked through J. Sterling Morton High School babysitting and housecleaning to pay for her books. Her art instructor there, Claudia Stevenson, encouraged Berdich to study at the School of the Art Institute (SAIC). Berdich began night classes at SAIC, working odd jobs to save money. A friend helped her gain employment with a postcard company, where she did color separation and photo retouching. At age 26, Berdich left home and moved to Chicago, joining the Illinois Arts Project, where she first encountered printmaking. She was instantly taken with the etching medium, especially the opportunity it afforded to explore tonal effects. When World War II began, she took a course in drafting and worked for the American Steel Company. She returned to the SAIC after the war, attending full-time and graduating with a B.A. in 1946. A year later, Berdich was hired by SAIC, where she founded the printmaking department and continued teaching until her retirement in 1979 as a professor emeritus. Berdich used experimental techniques, applying various colored inks by hand to the etching plate to create one-of-a-kind works. This approach to creating layered and subtle shifts in tonality is evident in her prints Things to Be Remembered, 1949, and View Through Distorting Spectacles, 1952. The latter is a fine example of her surrealist etchings, with its repetitive eyes and references to perception couched in a symbolist, dreamlike atmosphere. Berdich was one of the first artists in the United States to develop photographic images on copper plate intaglio, and in 1956 introduced a photo transfer method to canvas and paper.  -- from website for Macdowell Colony