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John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism ''

Ways of Seeing ''Ways of Seeing'' is a 1972 television series of 30-minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger and producer Mike Dibb. It was broadcast on BBC Two in January 1972 and adapted into a book of the same name. The series was intended as a ...

'', written as an accompaniment to the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

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series of the same name, was influential. He lived in France for over fifty years.

Early life

Berger was born on 5 November 1926 in Stoke Newington, London, the first of two children of Miriam and Stanley Berger. His grandfather was from

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...

, Italy,The Books Interview: John Berger
The Books Interview: John Berger
accessdate: 2 January 2017 and his father, Stanley, raised as a non-religious Jew who adopted Catholicism, had been an infantry officer on the Western Front during the First World War and was awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC ...

and an OBE. Berger was educated at

St Edward's School, Oxford St Edward's School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in Oxford, England. It is known informally as 'Teddies'. Approximately sixty pupils live in each of its thirteen houses. The school is a member of the Rugby G ...

. He served in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

during the Second World War from 1944 to 1946. He enrolled at the

Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

and the

Central School of Art and Design The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and ...

in London.

Career

Berger began his career as a painter and exhibited works at a number of London galleries in the late 1940s. His art has been shown at the Wildenstein, Redfern and

Leicester Galleries Leicester Galleries was an art gallery located in London from 1902 to 1977 that held exhibitions of modern British, French and international artists' works. Its name was acquired in 1984 by Peter Nahum, who operates "Peter Nahum at the Leiceste ...

in London. Berger taught drawing at St Mary's teacher training college. He later became an art critic, publishing many essays and reviews in the ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British Political magazine, political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney Webb, Sidney and Beatrice ...

''. His

Marxist humanism Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in an interpretation of the works of Karl Marx. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to huma ...

and his strongly stated opinions on modern art combined to make him a controversial figure early in his career. As a statement of political commitment, he titled an early collection of essays ''Permanent Red''. Berger was never a formal member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB): rather he was a close associate of it and its front, the

Artists’ International Association The Artists' International Association (AIA) was an organisation founded in London in 1933 out of discussion among Pearl Binder, Clifford Rowe, Misha Black, James Fitton, James Boswell, James Holland, Edward Ardizzone, Peter Laszlo Peri'Artists ...

(AIA), until the latter disappeared in 1953. He was active in the Geneva Club, a discussion group that appears to have overlapped with British communist circles in the 1950s.

Publishing

In 1958, Berger published his first novel, ''A Painter of Our Time'', which tells the story of the disappearance of Janos Lavin, a fictional exiled Hungarian painter, and his diary's discovery by an art critic friend called John. The work was withdrawn by the publisher under pressure from the

Congress for Cultural Freedom The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist advocacy group founded in 1950. At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the CIA was instrumental in the establishment and funding of the ...

a month after its publication. His next novels were ''The Foot of Clive'' and ''Corker's Freedom''; both of which presented an urban English life of alienation and melancholy. Berger moved to Quincy in the

Haute-Savoie Haute-Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè d'Amont'' or ''Hiôta-Savouè''; en, Upper Savoy) or '; it, Alta Savoia. is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France, bordering both Switzerland and Italy. Its prefecture is Ann ...

, France, in 1962 due to his distaste for life in Britain. In 1972, the

...
broadcast his four-part television series ''

'' and published its accompanying text, a book of the same name. The first episode functions as an introduction to the study of images; it was derived in part from

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish ...

's essay "

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), by Walter Benjamin, is an essay of cultural criticism which proposes and explains that mechanical reproduction devalues the ''aura'' (uniqueness) of an ''objet d'art''. That in the age ...

". The subsequent episodes concern the image of woman as a sexualized object in Western culture, expressions of property ownership and wealth in European oil painting, and modern advertising. The series, the first of several close collaborations with director

Mike Dibb Mike Dibb (born Wharfedale, Bradford, West Yorkshire, 29 April 1940) is an English documentary filmmaker. In almost half a century of making films mainly for television – on subjects including cinema, literature, art, jazz, sport and popular cu ...

, has had a lasting influence, and in particular introduced the concept of the

male gaze In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heteros ...

, as part of his analysis of the treatment of the nude in European painting. It soon became popular among feminists, including the British film critic

Laura Mulvey Laura Mulvey (born 15 August 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She previously taught at Bulmershe ...

, who used it to critique traditional media representations of the female character in cinema. John Berger-2009 (4)

Berger's novel '' G.'', a

picaresque The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...

romance set in Europe in 1898, won the

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

and the Booker Prize in 1972. Berger donated half the Booker cash prize to the

British Black Panthers The British Black Panthers (BBP) or the British Black Panther movement (BPM) was a Black Power organisation in the United Kingdom that fought for the rights of black people and racial minorities in the country. The BBP were inspired by the US ...

, and retained half to support his work on the study on migrant workers that became '' A Seventh Man'', asserting that both endeavors represented aspects of his political struggle. Berger's sociological writings include ''A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor'' (1967) and ''A Seventh Man: Migrant Workers in Europe'' (1975). Berger and photographer Jean Mohr, his frequent collaborator, sought to document and understand the experiences of peasants. Their subsequent book, ''Another Way of Telling'', discusses and illustrates their documentary technique and treats the theory of photography through Berger's essays and Mohr's photographs. His studies of individual artists include ''The Success and Failure of Picasso'' (1965), a survey of that modernist's career, and ''Art and Revolution:

Ernst Neizvestny Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestny (russian: Эрнст Ио́сифович Неизве́стный; 9 April 1925 – 9 August 2016) was a Russian sculptor, painter, graphic artist, and art philosopher. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1976 and lived and ...

, Endurance, and the Role of the Artist in the USSR'' (1969). In the 1970s, Berger collaborated on three films with the Swiss director Alain Tanner: He wrote or co-wrote ''La Salamandre'' (1971), ''The Middle of the World'' (1974), and ''

Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 ''Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000'' (french: Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l'an 2000) is a 1976 Swiss drama film directed by Alain Tanner and written by Tanner and John Berger. The location of the shooting was Geneva. The film follows the lives ...

'' (1976). His major fictional work of the 1980s, the trilogy ''Into Their Labours'' (consisting of the novels '' Pig Earth'', ''Once in Europa'', and ''Lilac and Flag''), treats the European peasant experience from its farming roots to contemporary economic and political displacement and urban poverty. In 1974, Berger co-founded the Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative Ltd in London with

Arnold Wesker Sir Arnold Wesker (24 May 1932 – 12 April 2016) was an English dramatist. He was the author of 50 plays, four volumes of short stories, two volumes of essays, much journalism and a book on the subject, a children's book, some poetry, and oth ...

Lisa Appignanesi Lisa Appignanesi (born Elżbieta Borensztejn; 4 January 1946) is a British-Canadian writer, novelist, and campaigner for free expression. Until 2021, she was the Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, and is a former President of English PEN ...

Richard Appignanesi Richard Appignanesi (born December 20, 1940) is a Canadian writer and editor. He was the originating editor of the internationally successful illustrated '' For Beginners'' book series (since 1991 called the '' Introducing...'' series), as well ...

Chris Searle Chris Searle (born 1 January 1944) is a British educator, poet, anti-racist activist and socialist. He has written widely on cricket, language, jazz, race and social justice, and has taught in Canada, England, Tobago, Mozambique and Grenada. He h ...

, Glenn Thompson, Siân Williams, and others. The cooperative was active until the early 1980s. In later essays, Berger wrote about photography, art, politics, and memory. He published in ''The Shape of a Pocket'' a correspondence with

Subcomandante Marcos Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente (born 19 June 1957) is a Mexican insurgent, the former military leader and spokesman for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in the ongoing Chiapas conflict,Pasztor, S. B. (2004). Marcos, Subcoman ...

, and penned short stories that appeared in ''

The Threepenny Review ''The Threepenny Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1980. It is published in Berkeley, California, by founding editor Wendy Lesser. Maintaining a quarterly schedule (March, June, September, December), it offers fiction, memoirs, ...

'' and ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. His sole volume of poetry is ''Pages of the Wound'', though other volumes, such as the theoretical essays ''And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos'' contain poetry. His 2007 collection of essays on the uses of art as an instrument of political resistance
Hold Everything Dear
was titled after the poem by Gareth Evans. His later novels include ''To the Wedding'', a love story dealing with the AIDS crisis, and ''King: A Street Story'', a novel about homelessness and shantytown life told from the perspective of a stray dog. Initially, Berger insisted that his name be kept off the cover and title page of ''King'', wanting the novel to be received on its own merits. Berger's 1980 volume ''About Looking'' includes an influential chapter, "Why Look at Animals?" It is cited by numerous scholars in the interdisciplinary field of

animal studies Animal studies is a recently recognised field in which animals are studied in a variety of cross-disciplinary ways. Scholars who engage in animal studies may be formally trained in a number of diverse fields, including geography, art history, ant ...

. The chapter was later reproduced in a Penguin Great Ideas selection of essays of the same title. Berger's novel ''From A to X'' was long-listed for the 2008 Booker Prize. In ''Bento's Sketchbook'' (2011) Berger combines extracts from Baruch Spinoza, sketches, memoir, and observations in a book that contemplates the relationship of materialism to spirituality. According to Berger, what could be seen as a contradiction "is beautifully resolved by Spinoza, who shows that it is not a duality, but in fact an essential unity". The book has been described as "a characteristically '' sui generis'' work combining an engagement with the thought of the 17th-century lens grinder, draughtsman, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza, with a study of drawing and a series of semi-autobiographical sketches". Among his last works is ''Confabulations'' (essays, 2016).

Other work

In 1999, Berger voiced both twin brother characters Archie and Albert Crisp in the video game '' Grand Theft Auto: London 1969''. He was a member of the Support Committee of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.

Personal life

Berger married three times, first to artist and illustrator Patt Marriott in 1949; the marriage was childless and the couple divorced. In the mid-1950s, he married the Russian Anya Bostock (née Anna Sisserman), with whom he had two children, Katya Berger and

Jacob Berger Jacob Berger (born 1960) is a Swiss film director and screenwriter and actor. His 1991 film ''Angels'' was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.; his second motion picture ''A Loving Father'' (2002), reunited Gérard Depard ...

; the couple divorced in the mid-1970s. Soon afterwards, he married Beverly Bancroft, with whom he had one child, Yves. Beverly died in 2013. Berger died at his home in Antony, France, on 2 January 2017 at the age of 90.

Legacy

In July 2009 Berger donated his archive of 369 files, nine boxes and one book to the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

. The contents include literary manuscripts, drafts, unpublished material and correspondence.

Awards

* 1972 Booker Prize * 1972

* 1991

Petrarca-Preis Petrarca-Preis was a European literary and translation award named after the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch. Founded in 1975 by German art historian and publisher Hubert Burda, it was primarily designed for contemporary ...

* 2009

Golden PEN Award The Golden PEN Award is a literary award established in 1993 by English PEN given annually to a British writer for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature". The winner is chosen by the Board of English PEN. The award has previously been ...

Works

Fiction

*''A Painter of Our Time'' (1958) *''The Foot of Clive'' (1962) *''Corker's Freedom'' (1964) *'' G.'' (1972) *''Into Their Labours'' trilogy (1991): '' Pig Earth'' (1979), ''Once in Europa'' (1987), ''Lilac and Flag'' (1990) *'' To the Wedding'' (1995) *''King: A Street Story'' (1999) *'' From A to X'' (2008)

Plays

*''A Question of Geography'' (with Nella Bielski) (1987) *''Les Trois Chaleurs'' (1985) *''Boris'' (1983) *''Goya's Last Portrait'' (with Nella Bielski) (1989)

Screenplays

*''

'' (with Alain Tanner) (1976) *'' La Salamandre'' (''The Salamander'') (with Alain Tanner) (1971) *'' Le Milieu du monde'' (''The Middle of the World'') (with Alain Tanner) (1974) * ''Play Me Something'' (with Timothy Neat) (1989) * ''Une ville à Chandigarh'' (A City at Chandigarh) (1966)

Poetry

*''Pages of the Wound'' (1994) *''Collected Poems'' (2014)

Other

*''Marcel Frishman'' (with George Besson) (1958) *''Permanent Red'' (1960) (Published in the United States in altered form in 1962 as ''Toward Reality: Essays in Seeing'') *''The Success and Failure of Picasso'' (1965) *''A Fortunate Man'' (with Jean Mohr) (1967) *''Art and Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny And the Role of the Artist in the U.S.S.R'' (1969) *''The Moment of Cubism and Other Essays'' (1969) *''The Look of Things: Selected Essays and Articles'' (1972) *''

'' (with Mike Dibb, Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox and Richard Hollis) (1972) *'' A Seventh Man'' (with Jean Mohr) (1975) *''About Looking'' (1980) *''Another Way of Telling'' (with Jean Mohr) (1982) *''And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos'' (1984) *''The White Bird'' (U.S. title: ''The Sense of Sight'') (1985) *''Keeping a Rendezvous'' (1992) *''The Sense of Sight'' (1993) *''Albrecht Dürer: Watercolours and Drawings'' (1994) *''Titian: Nymph and Shepherd'' (with Katya Berger) (1996) *''Photocopies'' (1996) *''Isabelle: A Story in Shorts'' (with Nella Bielski) (1998) *''At the Edge of the World'' (with Jean Mohr) (1999) *''Selected Essays'' (

Geoff Dyer Geoff Dyer (born 5 June 1958) is an English author. He has written a number of novels and non-fiction books, some of which have won literary awards. Personal background Dyer was born and raised in Cheltenham, England, as the only child of a ...

, ed.) (2001) *''The Shape of a Pocket'' (2001) *''I Send You This Cadmium Red: A Correspondence between John Berger and John Christie'' (with John Christie) (2001) * ''My Beautiful'' (with Marc Trivier) (2004) *''Berger on Drawing'' (2005) *''Here is Where We Meet'' (2005) *''Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance'' (2007; 2nd ed. 2016) *''The Red Tenda of Bologna'' (2007) *''War with No End'' (with

Naomi Klein Naomi A. Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, left-wing politics and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism ...

Hanif Kureishi Hanif Kureishi (born 5 December 1954) is a British playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker and novelist of South Asian and English descent. In 2008, ''The Times'' included Kureishi in its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Early l ...

Arundhati Roy Suzanna Arundhati Roy (born 24 November 1961) is an Indian author best known for her novel ''The God of Small Things'' (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. S ...

, Ahdaf Soueif,

Joe Sacco Joe Sacco (; born October 2, 1960) is a Maltese-American cartoonist and journalist. He is best known for his comics journalism, in particular in the books '' Palestine'' (1996) and '' Footnotes in Gaza'' (2009), on Israeli–Palestinian rela ...

and

Haifa Zangana Haifa Zangana (born 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq) is an Iraqi writer, painter, and political activist, known for her novel ''Women on a Journey: Between Baghdad and London'' about political repression, violence and exile. She has written both novels and ...

) (2007) *''Meanwhile'' (2008) *''Why Look at Animals?'' (2009) *''From I to J'' (with Isabel Coixet) (2009) * ''Lying Down to Sleep'' (with Katya Berger) (2010) * ''Railtracks'' (with Anne Michaels) (2011) *''Bento's Sketchbook'' (2011) *''Cataract'' (with Selçuk Demirel) (2012) *''Understanding a Photograph'' (

, ed.) (2013)John Berger
''Understanding a Photograph''
Aperture. . *''Daumier: The Heroism of Modern Life'' (2013) *''Flying Skirts: An Elegy'' (with Yves Berger) (2014) *''Portraits: John Berger on Artists'' ( Tom Overton, ed.) (2015) *''Cuatro horizontes'' (''Four Horizons'') (with Sister Lucia Kuppens, Sister Telchilde Hinkley and John Christie) (2015) *''Lapwing & Fox'' (Conversations between John Berger and John Christie) (2016) *''Confabulations'' (Essays) (2016) *''Landscapes: John Berger on Art'' ( Tom Overton, ed.) (2016) *''John by Jean: Fifty Years of Friendship'' ( Jean Mohr, ed.) (2016) *''A Sparrow's Journey: John Berger Reads Andrey Platonov'' (CD: 44:34 & 81-page book with Robert Chandler and Gareth Evans), London: House Sparrow Press in association with the London Review Bookshop (2016) *''Smoke'' (with Selçuk Demirel) (2017) *''Seeing Through Drawing '' (with John Christie) (2017). The book, published by OBJECTIF, features new texts by and about John Berger plus a catalogue section of images, information and stories from the invited artists in the main exhibition held on 8 July – 26 August 2017 at Mandell's Gallery, Norwich. It contains two previously unpublished sequences of correspondence on art and communications between John Berger and his daughter Katya Berger Andreadakis along with tributes and stories from: Anne Michaels, Yves Berger, Eulàlia Bosch, Geoff Dyer, Gareth Evans, Paul Gordon and Tom Overton. The book also features a compilation of writings on the art and practice of drawing collected together by John Christie, from across John Berger's art criticism, fiction, essays and letters. *''What Time Is It?'' (with Selçuk Demirel) ( Maria Nadotti, ed.) (2019) *''Swimming Pool'' (with Leon Kossoff) (Introduction by Deborah Levy. Postscript by Yves Berger. Berger’s Texts selected by Teresa Pintó. Book design by John Christie) (2020)

Film

*''The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger'' (2016), directed by

Tilda Swinton Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition t ...

Colin MacCabe Colin Myles Joseph MacCabe (born 9 February 1949) is an English academic, writer and film producer. He is currently a distinguished professor of English and film at the University of Pittsburgh.

, Christopher Roth and Bartek Dziadosz.

Reviews

*Harkness, Allan (1983), ''Berger: A Seventh Man?'', review of ''A Seventh Man'' and ''Another Way of Telling'', in Hearn, Sheila G.(ed.), ''

Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...

'' No. 12, Spring 1983, pp. 46 & 47,

References

External links

Postscript: John Berger, 1926–2017
Mike Gonzalez in ''International Socialism'' 40 (1988).

by John Berger, ''International Socialism'' 40 (1988).
Verso Books author pageJohn Berger Archive at the British Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, John 1926 births 2017 deaths 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English painters 21st-century English painters 21st-century male artists 20th-century English poets 21st-century English poets 21st-century English male writers Academics of St Mary's University, Twickenham Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts British Army personnel of World War II English art critics English expatriates in France English male novelists English male painters English Marxists English male poets English screenwriters English male screenwriters English people of Italian-Jewish descent Geometry of Fear James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Booker Prize winners Marxist humanists Marxist writers Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin People educated at St Edward's School, Oxford Writers from London