Painting
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A Painter of Our Time
Book 1958
Books, Early Works, Migrants, Novels, Painting, UK
A Painter of our Time, first novel written by John Berger in 1958.
A Painter of Our Time is at once a gripping intellectual and moral detective story and a book whose aesthetic insights make it a companion piece to Berger’s great works of art criticism. The year is 1956. Soviet tanks are rolling into Budapest. In London, an expatriate Hungarian painter named Janos Lavin has disappeared following a triumphant on…
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Permanent Red
Book 1960
Art, Books, Early Works, Essays, Painting, Politics
Permanent Red, book of essays by John Berger, first edition in 1960.
Why should an artist’s way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Any artwork reflects the artist’s intentions, but also its times: therefore all art is political.
In Permanent Red, John Berger argues that the contemporary artist should strive for a realism that aims for hope, to transform the world. Surveying the work of histor…
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The Success and Failure of Picasso
Book 1965
Art, Books, Early Works, Essays, France, Painting, Spain
The Success and Failure of Picasso, essay by John Berger, first edition in 1965.
At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized−and wholly isolated.
In this stunning critical asses…
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Art and Revolution
Book 1969
Art, Books, Drawing, Essays, Painting, Russia, Sculpture
Art and Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny And the Role of the Artist in the U.S.S.R, essay by John Berger, first edition in 1969.
What is the meaning of Revolutionary art? And who is the revolutionary artist?
In Art and Revolution, John Berger examines the life and work of Ernst Neizvestny, a Russian sculptor whose exclusion from the ranks of officially approved Soviet artists left him laboring in enforced obscuri…
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The Look of Things
Book 1972
Art, Books, Essays, Painting, Politics
The Look of Things: Selected Essays and Articles, book of essays by John Berger, first edition in 1972.
This anthology of some of John Berger’s most incisive and brilliant essays and articles, written throughout the 1960s, is one of his most celebrated books. The pieces span from the life of artists like Camille Corot and Fernand Léger; character sketches of the likes of Le Corbusier, Walter Benjamin, Jack Yea…
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Ways of Seeing
Book 1972
Art, Books, Essays, Feminism, Painting, UK
Ways of Seeing, essay by John Berger, first edition in 1972, based on the BBC television series with John Berger, made by John Berger, Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, Michael Dibb and Richard Hollis.
This book has been translated in 38 languages.
“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled” — so opens John Berger’s revolutionary million-copy bestseller on how to look at artJohn B…
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About Looking
Book 1980
Art, Books, Essays, Painting
About Looking, book of essays by John Berger, first edition in 1980.
As a novelist, essayist, and cultural historian, John Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting insight whose work amounts to a subtle, powerful critique of the canons of our civilization. In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind u…
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The Sense of Sight
Book 1985
Art, Books, Essays, Painting
The Sense of Sight, book of essays by John Berger, first edition in 1985.
With this provocative and infinitely moving collection of essays, John Berger responds to the profound questions posed by the visual world. For when he writes about Cubism, he writes not only of Braque, Léger, Picasso, and Gris, but of that incredible moment early in this century when the world converged around a marvelous sense of promise…
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Keeping a Rendez-vous
Book 1992
Books, Essays, Painting, Sculpture
Keeping a Rendez-vous, book of essays by John Berger, first edition in 1992.
When he stands before Giorgione’s La Tempesta , John Berger sees not only the painting but our whole notion of time, sweeping us away from a lost Eden. A photograph of a gravely joyful crowd gathered on a Prague street in November 1989 provokes reflection on the meaning of democracy and the reunion of a people with long-banished hopes …
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The Shape of a Pocket
Book 2001
Books, Essays, Painting, Short Stories
The Shape of a Pocket, book of essays by John Berger, first edition in 2001.
John Berger writes: “The pocket in question is a small pocket of resistance. A pocket is formed when two or more people come together in agreement. The resistance is against the inhumanity of the new world economic order. The people coming together are the reader, me and those the essays are about – Rembrandt, Palaeolithic cave painter…
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Why Look at Animals?
Book 2009
Animals, Books, Essays, Painting
Why Look at Animals? book of essays by John Berger, first edition in 2009.
John Berger broke new ground with his penetrating writings on life, art and how we see the world around us. Here he explores how the ancient relationship between man and nature has been broken in the modern consumer age, with the animals that used to be at the center of our existence now marginalized and reduced to spectacle. Throughout hi…
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Selected Essays
Book 2001
Books, Economy, Essays, Geoff Dyer, Painting, Philosophy, Politics
Selected Essays, book of essays by John Berger, edited by Geoff Dyer, first edition in 2001.
Booker wining novelist, playwright, essayist, poet and critic – even admirers rarely know John Berger in all his literary incarnations. This collection of essays, for the first time, takes a definitive look at his extraordinary career. Far from being footnotes to the main body of work Berger’s essays are absolutely cent…
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Portraits
Book 2015
Art, Books, Contemporary art, Drawing, Painting, Philosophy, Tom Overton
Portraits, book of essays by John Berger, edited by Tom Overton, first edition in 2015. This first volume has been completed by a second volume Landscapes (2016).
John Berger tells a personal history of art from the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet caves to 21st century conceptual artists. Berger presents entirely new ways of thinking about artists both canonized and obscure, from Rembrandt to Henry Moore, Ja…
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Swimming Pool
Book 2020
Art, Books, Collaborations, Drawing, John Christie, Painting
Swimming Pool, essay by John Berger edited by John Christie with Leon Kossoff’s works, first edition in 2020.
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Titian : Nymph and Shepherd
Book 1996
Art, Books, Collaborations, Family, Katya Berger Andreadakis, Letters, Painting
Titian : Nymph and Shepherd, book of letters by Katya and John Berger, first edition in 1996.
This book is first a dialogue between a daughter and a father about life, physical sensation, mortality. Both seem to listen to the other with great attention. Secondly, it is the extraordinary vehicle for a series of insights into the everyday life and the art of the great Venetian master, following an uncanny incident …
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Mantegna : Lying Down to Sleep
Book 2010
Art, Books, Collaborations, Family, Katya Berger Andreadakis, Letters, Painting
Mantegna : Lying Down to Sleep, book of letters by Katya and John Berger, first edition in 2010.
The clouds in the Oculus of the Bridal Chamber, painted by Andrea Mantegna at St George’s Castle in Mantua, are the starting point for an intimate dialogue between father and daughter John and Katya Berger, held as they observe the frescoes in the famous room. The conversation leads to a personal exploration of…
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Cataract
Book 2012
Books, Collaborations, Drawing, Painting, Selçuk Demirel, Turkey
Cataract by John Berger (text) and Selçuk Demirel (illustrations), first edition in 2012.
What happens when an art critic loses some of his sight to cataracts? What wonders are glimpsed once vision is restored? In this impressionistic essay written in the spirit of Montaigne, John Berger records the effects of cataract removal operations on each of his eyes. With words by John Berger and beautiful illustrat…
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I Send You This Cadmium Red
Book 2000
Art, Books, Collaborations, Drawing, John Christie, Letters, Painting, UK
I Send You This Cadmium Red, a correspondence between John Berger and John Christie, first edition in 2000.
« Could it be that red is the one colour that is continually asking for a body? »
A book of correspondence between two highly talented friends-writer/critic/artist John Berger and filmmaker/artist John Christie – I Send You This Cadmium Red began in concept in February 1997, when Christie mused to …
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Lapwing & Fox
Book 2016
Art, Books, Collaborations, Drawing, John Christie, Letters, Painting, UK
Lapwing & Fox, Conversations between John Berger and John Christie, first edition in 2016.
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Books with Marisa Camino
Book 2005
Art, Books, Collaborations, Contemporary art, Drawing, Letters, Painting, Spain
John Berger contributed to three Marisa Camino’s books :
Entries (2005)
Como crece una pluma (2005)
Cartas a Marisa Camino (2018)
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Books with Liane Birnberg
Book 2006
Art, Books, Collaborations, Contemporary art, Drawing, Painting, Poetry
John Berger contributed to three Liane Birnberg’s books :
Word from a foreign language (2006)
Because wings are made to fly (2011)
Garden to my cheek (2016)
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Le Blaireau et le Roi
Book 2010
Art, Books, Collaborations, Contemporary art, Exhibitions, Family, Letters, Painting, Quincy, Yves Berger
Le Blaireau et le Roi , book by Yves and John Berger, edited by Emmanuel Favre, first edition in 2010, in link with the exhibition Dans leur travail at Chartreuse de Mélan (2006 Taninges, France).
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Over To You
Book 2019
Art, Books, Collaborations, Contemporary art, Family, Katya Berger Andreadakis, Letters, Painting, Quincy, Yves Berger
Over To You correspondence book of texts and images by Yves and John Berger, first edition in french in 2019, in english in 2024. Translated in French by Katya Berger Andreadakis for L’Atelier contemporain (2019).
Compelling and intimate, this collection of never-before-seen letters between the celebrated art critic and essayist, John Berger and his son Yves, an artist, is a moving look at their musings on art,…
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Seeing Through Drawing
Book 2017
About John Berger, Art, Books, Collaborations, Drawing, John Christie, Katya Berger Andreadakis, Letters, Painting, Tributes, UK, Yves Berger
Seeing Through Drawing, art catalogue, texts and correspondences with John Berger and others, edited by John Christie, first edition in 2017.
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Par La Fenêtre
Book 2009
Art, Books, Collaborations, Contemporary art, Drawing, Exhibitions, Family, Letters, Painting, Quincy, Yves Berger
Par La Fenêtre, exhibition catalog by Yves and John Berger, edited by Emmanuel Favre in link with their exhibition at Galerie Josephski-Neukum (2009, Issing, Germany).
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Disparate De Fuendetodos
Book 2013
Art, Books, Collaborations, Contemporary art, Drawing, Exhibitions, Family, Letters, Painting, Spain, Yves Berger
Disparate De Fuendetodos, exhibition catalog by Yves and John Berger, in link with their exhibition at Sala Zuloaga (2013, Fuendetodos, Spain).
…
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Desde el taller
Book 2015
Art, Books, Collaborations, Contemporary art, Drawing, Exhibitions, Family, Letters, Painting, Quincy, Yves Berger
Desde el taller , dialog between Yves and John Berger with Emmanuel Favre, drawings by Yves and John Berger, edited in 2015.
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Velasquez Äsop
Book 1991
Art, Books, Essays, Painting, Philosophy, Spain
Velasquez Äsop, artist catalogue of the Spanish painter Diego Velasquez (1599-1660) by John Berger, first edition in 1991.
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JOHN BERGER
Storyteller, essayist, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, painter and critic, John Berger (1926-2017) is one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years. Solo or in collaboration with Jean Mohr for example, he published more than 30 titles, the Booker Prize winning novel G and the best-seller Ways of Seeing. He has also published articles in the most important newspapers around the world.
He used to work and live in Quincy, a small French peasant community, the setting for his trilogy Into their Labours.
Painters, cineasts, writers, dancers, curators have been and are still inspired by his work, this website is a window on these TODAY creations.