BERLIN Sven (1911 – 1999)
“In the Park”. Pencil &
watercolour. 8 1/8” x 11 ¼”
From an album of the Artist’s drawings,
letters and drafts for books, poems etc.
IMAGE
Sven Berlin was born on 14th
September 1911, the son of Karl Berlin, a Swedish paper merchant . His mother
was English. He was educated at St.
Winifreds, Kenley and studied at Beckenham School of Art, Camborne and Redruth Schools of Art under A.C. Hambly.
He was a sculptor, painter, draughtsman and writer who led a bohemian, often
controversial life. He was apprenticed
as a mechanical engineer and in 1928 enrolled at Beckenham School of Art, but
decided instead to pursue a career as an adagio dancer in the music halls. In
1934 and 1938 he pursued his art studies at the Camborne-Redruth Schools of Art in Cornwall as well as other subjects,
such as poetry, philosophy and comparative religion. He had his first one-man
show at Camborne Community Centre in 1939, by which time he had begun
sculpting. A notable show was at Belgrave
Gallery in 1989. He exhibited at Lefevre
Gallery, Arthur Tooth and Sons Gallery and in Houston Texas, New York etc. Although a conscientious objector at the
outset of World War II, he eventually joined the Army. He settled in St. Ives, and was co-founder of the Crypt Group in 1946 and a founder-member
of the Penwith Society in 1949, the year
his book Alfred Wallis, Primitive, was published. Other books included The Dark Monarch; A
Portrait from Within, about St. Ives and its inhabitants - it led to several libel actions. His autobiography A Coat of Many Colours
1994 contains chapters on fellow-artists in St. Ives. After a few moves, partly by horse and gypsy
wagon, Berlin eventually settled at Wimborne, Dorset. The Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Gallery,
National Library of Scotland, Musee d'Art, Ovar, Portugal and other British and
foreign collections hold his work. Sven Berlin's daughter Greta Berlin is
a sculptor and his grand-daughter and her daughter, the artist Zennor Witney.
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