Olivia De Berardinis, known professionally as Olivia, is an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

who is famous for her paintings of women, often referred to as

pinup A pin-up model (known as a pin-up girl for a female and less commonly male pin-up for a male) is a model whose mass-produced pictures see widespread appeal as part of popular culture. Pin-up models were variously glamour models, fashion models ...

or cheesecake art. She has been working in this genre since the mid-1970s, becoming a contributor to ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

'' in 1985. By June 2004, she was given her own monthly pinup page for the magazine that continued for many years, often appearing with captions written by

Hugh Hefner Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of ''Playboy'' magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles which provoked charges of obsc ...

Biography

Schooled in

Elizabeth, NJ Elizabeth is a city and the county seat of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.New J ...

, De Berardinis arrived in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

in 1967 where she enrolled in the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

. She resided in New York City's

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

neighborhood from 1970 to 1974, creating

Minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

paintings. De Berardinis was one of the new artists introduced in the Second Annual Contemporary Reflections 1972–73, of the

Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The Aldrich has no permanent collection and is the only museum in Connecticut that is dedicated solely to the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum presents the first ...

Ridgefield, Connecticut Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York ...

. She was also presented as one of 18 new artists in the "Tenth Anniversary, the Larry Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art 1964-74" with established artists including

Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...

Agnes Martin Agnes Bernice Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004), was an American abstract painter. Her work has been defined as an "essay in discretion on inward-ness and silence". Although she is often considered or referred to as a minimalist, Mart ...

, and

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in M ...

. By 1975, financial pressures forced De Berardinis to seek out commercial art work. She returned to the skills she had gained as a child, painting women. She did work for periodicals and paperback publishers, advertisements, and movie posters. De Berardinis quickly secured regular work, starting in 1974, painting erotic fantasies for men's magazines. In 1977, she and partner Joel Beren started the O Card Company to publish De Berardinis' work as

greeting card A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo, made of high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthday ...

s. They married in 1979 and created another company, Ozone Productions, Ltd., to sell and license Olivia's artwork. In 1987, they moved from

, New York to

Malibu, California Malibu ( ; es, Malibú; Chumash: ) is a beach city in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles. It is known for its Mediterranean climate and its strip of the Malibu ...

, where they reside as of 2011.De Berardinis, Olivia (2011). De Berardinis' artwork has been shown in art galleries throughout the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

References

External links

*
"Olivia"
in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy ''The Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' is a 1997 reference work concerning fantasy fiction, edited by John Clute and John Grant. Other contributors include Mike Ashley, Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, David Langford, Sam J. Lundwall, Michael Scott R ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:De Berardinis, Olivia 1948 births Living people Pin-up artists American erotic artists American women painters Playboy illustrators Painters from California American women illustrators American illustrators 21st-century American women artists People from SoHo, Manhattan

Biography

References

Further reading

External links