Wallace "Wally" Berman (February 18, 1926 – February 18, 1976) was an American

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

maker, assemblage, and

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

artist and a crucial figure in postwar California art.

Personal life and education

Wallace Berman was born in

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

, New York in 1926. In the 1930s his family moved to

Boyle Heights, Los Angeles Boyle Heights is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, located east of the Los Angeles River. It is one of the city's most notable and historic Chicano/Mexican American communities, and is home to cultural landmarks like Mariachi Plaza and ...

. Berman was discharged from high school for gambling in the early 1940s and became involved in the

West Coast jazz West Coast jazz refers to styles of jazz that developed in Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as a subgenre of cool jazz, which consisted of a calmer style than bebop or hard bop. The music relied rel ...

scene. Berman wrote a song with

Jimmy Witherspoon James Witherspoon (August 8, 1920 – September 18, 1997) was an American jump blues and jazz singer. Early life, family and education Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas. His father was a railroad worker who sang in local choirs, an ...

. He attended classes at Jepson Art Institute and

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Chouinard, Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake, Los Angeles, Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt Disney, Walt and ...

in the 1940s. For a few years from 1949 he worked in a factory finishing

furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...

. There, he began creating sculptures from wood scraps. This led him to become a full-time artist by the early 1950s, and to involvement in the Beat Movement. He married Shirley Morand (aka Shirley Berman) and they had a son,

Tosh Tosh may refer to: People * Tosh (surname) * Tosh (nickname) * Tosh Townend (born 1985), professional skateboarder * Tosh Van der Sande (born 1990), Belgian professional cyclist Places * Tosh, Himachal Pradesh, India; a village * Kiryas ...

, in 1954. In 1957, Berman moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco, where he mostly focused on his magazine ''Semina'', which consisted of poetry, photographs, texts, drawings and images he assembled. In 1961, he returned to L.A., then moved to Topanga Canyon in 1965. He started his series of '' Verifax Collages'' in 1963 or 1964. Director

Dennis Hopper Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. He was considered one of the key figures of New Hollywood. He earned prizes from the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Internatio ...

, a collector of Berman's work, gave Berman a small role in his 1969 film ''

Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern. It was produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and the S ...

''. He produced work until his death in 1976 in a car accident caused by a

drunk driver Drunk driving (or drink-driving in British English) is the act of driving under the influence of alcohol. A small increase in the blood alcohol content increases the relative risk of a motor vehicle crash. In the United States, alcohol is in ...

. As a child, Berman told his mother he would die on his 50th birthday, which is precisely what occurred.

Artistic career

Berman created ''Verifax collages'', which consist of photocopies of images from magazines and newspapers mounted onto a flat surface in

fashion and mixed with occasional solid areas of acrylic paint. To make them, he used a

Verifax copier The Kodak verifax is a photo copying approach that uses a wet colloidal diffusion transfer technique patented by Yutzy, H.C. and Yackel, E.C. (1947) The light source is projected to the top crossing the negative being reflected -more or less, accor ...

(

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...

) machine to copy images he often juxtaposed in a grid format, creating what the critic Will Fenstermaker called "psychedelic typologies." Berman was influenced by

jazz music Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, m ...

rock music Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdo ...

, poetry of his Beat circle,

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

, and the

Kabbalah Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ...

. Though he was not religious, the influence of the Kabbalah and

Jewish mysticism Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), draws distinctions between different forms of mysticism which were practiced in different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbal ...

is seen in his collages that included Hebrew letters. These letters also appear in his only film, ''Aleph''. His involvement with the jazz scene allowed him opportunities to work with jazz musicians, creating

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...

album covers for

Charlie Parker Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz Saxophone, saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of beb ...

. In 1957 Berman had his first exhibition of his artworks at the newly opened

Ferus Gallery The Ferus Gallery was a contemporary art gallery which operated from 1957 to 1966. In 1957, the gallery was located at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles in the U.S. state of California. In 1958, it was relocated across the street to ...

in Los Angeles. His friends were the curators/owners of the gallery,

Ed Kienholz Edward Ralph Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American Installation art, installation artist and assemblage (art), assemblage sculptor whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he assembled ...

, Robert Alexander, and

Walter Hopps Walter "Chico" Hopps (May 3, 1932 – March 20, 2005) was an American museum director, gallerist, and curator of contemporary art. Hopps helped bring Los Angeles post-war artists to prominence during the 1960s, and later went on to redefine pract ...

. After the opening, the L.A. vice squad got a telephone tip from an anonymous caller and during the raid they found what was deemed a pornographic image by Cameron Parsons titled ''Peyote Vision'' at the bottom of Berman's assemblage work ''Temple''. He was convicted of displaying lewd and obscene materials. At the summation in the courtroom, Berman wrote on the blackboard "There is no justice, only revenge". His actor-friend

Dean Stockwell Robert Dean Stockwell (March 5, 1936 – November 7, 2021) was an American actor with a film and television career that spanned seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he appeared in '' Anchors Aweigh'' (1945), '' ...

paid the $150 fine to release Berman. Ferus was the last showing in a public gallery for Berman during his life.

''Semina''

His

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the mail, postal service. It developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence School and ...

publication ''Semina'' was a series of folio packages that were limited edition and sent or given to his friends. ''Semina'' consisted of collages mixed with poetry by writers

Michael McClure Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 – May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famo ...

Philip Lamantia Philip Lamantia (October 23, 1927 – March 7, 2005) was an American poet, writer and lecturer. His poetry incorporated stylistic experimentation and transgressive themes, and has been regarded as surrealist and visionary, contributing to the ...

, David Meltzer,

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German Americans, German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambien ...

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major Postmodern literature, postmodern author who influen ...

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...

, John Kelly Reed, and Berman, under the pseudonym Pantale Xantos. ''Semina'' was published from 1955 to 1964. The cover of the first issue featured a photograph of artist and occultist Marjorie Cameron. The volume also included Cameron's drawing ''Peyote Vision.'' This artwork was featured in Berman's 1957 exhibition at Los Angeles's Ferus Gallery, which was raided and shut down by police. Investigating officers claimed that ''Peyote Vision'', which featured two copulating figures, was pornographic.

''Aleph''

Berman created a six-minute 8mm silent

, ''Aleph'', that he worked on from 1958 to 1976. He began work on it soon after the release of the first issues of ''Semina'', and it incorporates techniques from collage and painting. The film includes hand coloring, Letraset symbols, and collage portraits of pop-culture icons superimposed on images of a Sony transistor radio. After Berman's death, filmmaker

Stan Brakhage James Stanley Brakhage ( ; January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American experimental filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film. Over the course of five decades, Brakhage cr ...

salvaged the film and enlarged it to 16mm for public screening. The film was named ''Aleph'' by Berman’s son Tosh, after the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which his father had adopted as a monogram.

Legacy

Berman's likeness appears on the album cover of the Beatles' 1967 ''

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (often referred to simply as ''Sgt. Pepper'') is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept ...

''. The portrait is from a photograph taken by

. It is directly above

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer-songwriter, musician and activist. He gained global fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's ...

, two rows up, next to

Tony Curtis Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz; June 3, 1925September 29, 2010) was an American actor with a career that spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films, in roles co ...

. In 1992 Berman's papers were donated to the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

by his son

Tosh Berman Tosh Berman (born 1954) is a writer and poet whose work often focuses on figures of Aftermath of World War II, post-war France such as Jacques Mesrine, Serge Gainsbourg and Boris Vian. Berman also founded the publishing house TamTam Books where h ...

Notable exhibitions

*''Wallace Berman - Visual Music'', 2018, galerie frank elbaz, Paris *''Looking for Mushrooms'', 2008,

Ludwig Museum Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lic ...

*''Trace du Sacre'', 2008;

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

*''Los Angeles 1955-1985'' 2006; Centre Pompidou *''California Modern'', 2006;

Orange County Museum of Art The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California. The museum's collection comprises more than 4,500 objects, with a concentration ...

*''Subway Series: The New York Yankees and the American Dream'', 2004;

Bronx Museum of the Arts The Bronx Museum of the Arts (BxMA), also called the Bronx Museum of Art or simply the Bronx Museum, is an American cultural institution located in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th-century works created by ...

*''Evidence of Impact: Art and Photography 1963-1978'', 2004;

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

*Solo exhibition: Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1957

Notable collections

*''Untitled'', 1967;

Norton Simon Museum The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, California. It was previously known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum and displays numerous sculptures on its grounds. Overview The Norton Simon collections ...

* di Rosa Collection *

Richard Prince Richard Prince (born August 6, 1949) is an American painter and photographer. In the mid-1970s, Prince made drawings and painterly collages that he has since disowned. His image ''Untitled (Cowboy)'', a photographic reproduction of a photograph ...

private collection *

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ori ...

References

External links

City of Degenerate Angels: Wallace Berman, Jazz and ''Semina'' in Postwar Los Angeles
by Ken D. Allan in Art Journal
galerie frank elbaz: Wallace Berman estateWallace Berman
at

Kadist Art Foundation KADIST is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts organization with an international contemporary art collection. KADIST hosts artist residencies and produces exhibitions, publications, and public events. Founded by Vincent Worms and Sandra Te ...

Wallace Berman archive page
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berman, Wallace 1926 births 1976 deaths Artists from Staten Island People from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles Beat Generation people Jewish American artists Assemblage artists People from Topanga, California Collage filmmakers Road incident deaths in California 20th-century American Jews