The paintings of Glenn Berry reframe the enduring themes of Western Civilization, but strive for the greater individual truth of the unconscious affect. His figurative mature work at first evokes the rhythm and order of the Renaissance work of Uccello or Piero della Francesca, which also manifest intellectual precepts in pictorial design, and display a reasoned detachment which is quietly Apollonian rather than passionately Dionysian.

            In 1951 Berry entered the Art Institute of Chicago preparing at first for admission to the BFA program. In those days the classrooms were still in the basement and students were required to pass through the main galleries and he recalls his fascination with El Greco’s “Assumption of the Virgin.” But by the end of his first year at Chicago his military deferment had expired and he volunteered for active duty in the Naval Reserve. His ship was stationed on the southern Japanese coastal island of Kyushu, which strongly influenced his art. When Berry returned to the Art Institute in 1953 he found the strong influence of German Expressionism and the Bauhaus and an emphasis on Paul Klee’s “Pedagogical Notebook,” which outlined the “elements of design” i.e., the dot, line, second dimension, third dimension, motion, color, value, texture (material), and found object. This gave Berry access to a new freedom of invention which has remained a central and renewable resource throughout his career.

            In 1973 during a trip to Spain; Berry made many drawings which he turned into a number of large 4’ x 8’ paintings on masonite panels. He would draw in chalk making any changes he wanted until he found the design he liked and then paint the line in thalo blue (he never used black in any of his paintings as he did not consider it a color).

            Eventually he felt the need to return to the figure in his themes, and in drawings made during a trip to Italy in 1984, he reinstated the figure. His work is not realistic or literal minded. The effect of color may be transcendent in the same sense that myth itself is transcendent. He is after the truth of the unconscious.