March 29, 2026
Press Release - Siri Berg Collages: Color Transitions and Geometric Structures
Press Release - Siri Berg Collages: Color Transitions and Geometric Structures
PRESS RELEASE:
Siri Berg
Collages: Color Transitions and Geometric Structures
March 30 to May10, 2026
Online Exhibition
David Richard Gallery, New York
About the Exhibition:
David Richard Gallery is please to present Siri Berg, Collages: Color Transitions and Geometric Structures, the gallery's second solo exhibition for the artist that celebrates the artist's love of structure and geometry and passion for color. The eleven artworks in this presentation span from 1988 to 2006, all geometric compositions utilizing rectangular Japanese woodblock prints on paper, and each assembled and collaged onto panels to create unique compositions. The color palettes range from: saturated to desaturated neutral hues, deep shades to soft tints, vivid to pastel hues, and shiny metallics to calming earth tones.
Each woodblock print and its distinct composition varied from a single rectangle of one all over color to subdivided rectangles with diagonal swaths and internal colored shapes. In the aggregate, that allowed Berg to combine the rectangular elements and create a variety of unique compositions with varying color transitions and patterns. Some of the collages are comprised of arrays of distinct columnar structures of rectangular prints situated as a series on a board to create larger compositions and patterns.
The surfaces of the woodblocks also varied from nearly flat and smooth to abraded and rough to provide texture and visual depth, Berg also produced elaborate lyrical topographical swirls, grids, and mottled patterns, as well as revealing the striations of natural wood grain or accentuating the striations by carving indentations to produce darker, saturated forms and shades of color. Berg incorporated a range of motifs such as circles, targets of concentric rings, and floral forms. Thus, the preparation of each block was intentional, detailed, and a labor of love. The printing was also meticulous in that some prints were created by printing several different wood blocks onto a single paper support to layer colors or patterns or both.
The large array of individual, unique prints from the diverse set of woodblocks described above provided Berg with a trove of unique elements to collage onto the large panels ranging in size from 22 x 52, 37 x 87, to 60 x 30 and 46 x 70 inches. Each of the final compositions on board are all collaged by hand and unique compositions.
About Siri Berg:
A native of Stockholm, Sweden, Siri Berg was born in 1921.While attending the German Gymnasium and Victoria College in Prague she took life drawing classes at the Rotter-Schule für Werbegrafik. She then entered The Institute of Art and Architecture at the University of Brussels before immigrating to the United States at the age of 19. Siri’s introduction to color stems from her study with Zita Querido (1917-2003), an Austrian born artist and former pupil and friend of Hans Hofmann who taught at the Riverdale Fine Arts Society near where Siri lived and raised her two sons.
A central motif of Siri’s work evolved from an early series of paintings featuring a phasing of a circle inspired by the Austrian Arthur Schnitzler’s theatrical and controversial play La Ronde (1897). Another early series titled Phases were connected to the ruminations by the Irishman W. B. Yeats’ in A Vision (1925). This book-length study by Yeats gave Siri the philosophical, historical, astrological, and poetic grounding upon which she would build an oeuvre spanning six decades.
Color became her calling card as she meticulously moved first through a series of all black, then all white canvases. She then gradually shifted to generate color charts and then mixing her own paint. Color and texture gave way to personal stories told through an embracing of total abstraction. Inspired by the theories put forward by Johannes Itten and Josef Albers, Siri took hold of their statements turning out her own theories ranging from bold and fast-forward to subdued and slow in motion.
Siri taught Color Theory at Parsons School of Design for over 30 years and was featured in the book “100 New York Painters” (by Cynthia Maris Dantzic, Schiffer Publishers). In 1999, Professor Joel Lebowitz endowed a Series to fund the Estelle Lebowitz Visiting Artist in Residence Program. With these funds, the Series mounted exhibitions and hosted campus visits by Siri Berg. Other invited artists included Carolee Schneeman, June Wayne, Hung Liu, Miriam Schapiro, Molly Snyder-Fink, May Stevens, Bernie Searle, Renee Cox, Cecilia Vicuña, and Joan Snyder. Siri was a long-time member of the American Abstract Artists.
Significant monographic presentations include: The American Swedish Museum, Philadelphia (’86, ‘99); The Yeshiva University Museum, New York (’91); The Robert C. Williams American Museum, Atlanta (’97); Swedish American Museum, Chicago (’03); Gibson Gallery Museum at SUNY Potsdam (’06); The William Whipple Art Museum at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall (’08); The Painting Center, New York (’12); Shirley Fiterman Art Center, New York (’16); The Bonniers Konsthall Museum, Stockholm (’18); Swedish Embassy, Washington, DC (’19).
Prominent public collections include The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Southwest Minnesota State University Art Museum MN; New York University, New York; Gray Art Gallery, NYU, New York; Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art), Stockholm, Sweden; The Swedish Ambassador’s Residence in Washington D.C., among others.
Siri Berg lived and worked in New York City’s SoHo district until her death in 2020
Artworks Copyright © Estate of Siri Berg
Courtesy David Richard Gallery.
A native of Stockholm, Sweden, Siri Berg was born in 1921.While attending the German Gymnasium and Victoria College in Prague she took life drawing classes at the Rotter-Schule für Werbegrafik. She then entered The Institute of Art and Architecture at the University of Brussels before immigrating to the United States at the age of 19. Siri’s introduction to color stems from her study with Zita Querido (1917-2003), an Austrian born artist and former pupil and friend of Hans Hofmann who taught at the Riverdale Fine Arts Society near where Siri lived and raised her two sons.
A central motif of Siri’s work evolved from an early series of paintings featuring a phasing of a circle inspired by the Austrian Arthur Schnitzler’s theatrical and controversial play La Ronde (1897). Another early series titled Phases were connected to the ruminations by the Irishman W. B. Yeats’ in A Vision (1925). This book-length study by Yeats gave Siri the philosophical, historical, astrological, and poetic grounding upon which she would build an oeuvre spanning six decades.
Color became her calling card as she meticulously moved first through a series of all black, then all white canvases. She then gradually shifted to generate color charts and then mixing her own paint. Color and texture gave way to personal stories told through an embracing of total abstraction. Inspired by the theories put forward by Johannes Itten and Josef Albers, Siri took hold of their statements turning out her own theories ranging from bold and fast-forward to subdued and slow in motion.
Siri taught Color Theory at Parsons School of Design for over 30 years and was featured in the book “100 New York Painters” (by Cynthia Maris Dantzic, Schiffer Publishers). In 1999, Professor Joel Lebowitz endowed a Series to fund the Estelle Lebowitz Visiting Artist in Residence Program. With these funds, the Series mounted exhibitions and hosted campus visits by Siri Berg. Other invited artists included Carolee Schneeman, June Wayne, Hung Liu, Miriam Schapiro, Molly Snyder-Fink, May Stevens, Bernie Searle, Renee Cox, Cecilia Vicuña, and Joan Snyder. Siri was a long-time member of the American Abstract Artists.
Significant monographic presentations include: The American Swedish Museum, Philadelphia (’86, ‘99); The Yeshiva University Museum, New York (’91); The Robert C. Williams American Museum, Atlanta (’97); Swedish American Museum, Chicago (’03); Gibson Gallery Museum at SUNY Potsdam (’06); The William Whipple Art Museum at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall (’08); The Painting Center, New York (’12); Shirley Fiterman Art Center, New York (’16); The Bonniers Konsthall Museum, Stockholm (’18); Swedish Embassy, Washington, DC (’19).
Prominent public collections include The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Southwest Minnesota State University Art Museum MN; New York University, New York; Gray Art Gallery, NYU, New York; Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art), Stockholm, Sweden; The Swedish Ambassador’s Residence in Washington D.C., among others.
Siri Berg lived and worked in New York City’s SoHo district until her death in 2020
Artworks Copyright © Estate of Siri Berg
Courtesy David Richard Gallery.
Associated Artist
Associated Exhibitions
- Siri Berg Collages: Color Transitions and Geometric Structures
March 30, 2026 - May 10, 2026
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Press Release - Siri Berg Collages: Color Transitions and Geometric Structures -
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