Bernece Berkman

Bernece Berkman (1911–1988), known as Bernece Berkman-Hunter after marriage, was an American painter born in Chicago, Illinois. She was inspired by what she saw in urban Chicago during the Great Depression and is best known for paintings depicting the plight of industrial workers and the poor.

She took evening sketching classes in Todros Geller's studio and studied oil painting with Geller. Rudolph Weisenborn was another early influence. Working with both of these artists Berkman was introduced to Cubism and Expressionism and her work became more political in nature. She also studied briefly in New York at Hunter College and at The New School for Social Research under Stuart Davis.

In 1934 Berkman's work was exhibited for the first time in a group show of Jewish artists at the Palmer House in Chicago. In 1939 she exhibited a painting at the New York World’s Fair.

She married Oscar H. Hunter, an African-American writer, in 1946. Together they founded a wallpaper company, Berk-Hunter Associates, in 1949. They divorced in 1976.

In 1972 she traveled to France and Italy. Her travel diary is housed at the Library of Congress.

She was an active member of the artist community in Chicago and New York and belonged to the Chicago Society of Artists and the Chicago Women's Salon.

• American Artists Congress, 1937
• Denver Art Museum, 1938
• Springfield (MA) Museum of Fine Art
• WPA Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, 1938
• World's Fair, NYC, 1939
• International Water Color Exhibition, AIC, 1940
• Chicago and Vicinity Exhibit, Art Institute of Chicago, 1940, 41
• After the Great Crash: New Deal Art in Illinois, Illinois State Museum, Springfield (IL), 1983

• Jews in Flight (1939)
• Untitled, Man in the City (1943)

• The Art Institute of Chicago
• Carnegie Museum of Art
• Evansville Illinois State Hospital
• Bernard Friedman Collection
• Seattle Art Museum
• University of Iowa
• University of Michigan
• University of Nebraska, Omaha

• "Collections". Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved 22 May 2016. 
• Stearns, Robert (2000). Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland. Minneapolis, MN: Arts Midwest. p. 253. ISBN 0918881404. 
• "Bernece BERKMAN-HUNTER (1911-1988)". artprice. Retrieved 22 May 2016. 
• "Bernece Berkman". Illinois Women Artists Project. 
• "OH, BUT THERE WERE THREE WISE MEN". Seattle Art Museum. 
• Stearns, Robert (2000). Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland. Minneapolis, MN: Arts Midwest. p. 253. ISBN 0918881404. 
• Stearns, Robert (2000). Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland. Minneapolis, MN: Arts Midwest. p. 253. ISBN 0918881404. 
• Stearns, Robert (2000). Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland. Minneapolis, MN: Arts Midwest. p. 253. ISBN 0918881404.