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Mersad Berber, the
first child of Muhamed and Sadika Berber was born on
January 1, 1940, in the family home in Bosanski Petrovac,
a Western Bosnian township known for its skilled weaving
craftsmen and quality goods. Mersad started his primary education in Banja Luka in 1946. From the first grade he impressed his teachers as an exceptionally good draughtsman. |
| He continued to produce virtuoso
drawings and paintings on paper throughout his secondary
school years, which he began in 1950. His formal art
education began in 1959 at the Academy of Fine Arts in
Ljublijana in the Republic of Slovenia where he graduated
with a BA and MA. Throughout his career and up to the present time he has created cycles of paintings which chronicle events, tributes, homage and dedications that link to his pre-occupation with his personal reality and his view of the centuries; of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and of Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Each cycle has its roots either in Croatian and Bosnian-Herzegovinan history from the Medieval to the twentieth century or, in a much wider context, the great masters of European painting from the cinquecento to the Ottoman for example, Durer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van der Weyden, Uccello, Vermeer and Velasquez. Of particular note are the cycles entitled Sarajevo Chronicles, The Age of Romanticism, Homage to Velasquez, and more recently Homage to Piero della Francesca, the Florentine Motifs and the White Paintings. The interaction and blending of styles, temperaments, schools and traditions is the cultural and artistic focus of Berber's work for he is the grand master of blending of different European traditions - with their authentic characteristics; their histories and their emotive multiculturalism. (Courtesy of London Contemporary Art Limited). |