Berger Collection
Berger Collection
The Berger Collection is on tour! Treasures of British Art: The Berger Collection will be on view at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, June 2 – September 9, 2018. The exhibition will be on view at the DAM March 3 – October 20, 2019.
The Berger Collection at the Denver Art Museum comprises 65 British artworks gifted to the museum by the Berger Collection Educational Trust (BCET), owner of the collection since 1999. The paintings are part of the collection formed in the mid-1990s by the late William M. B. Berger and his wife Bernadette Joan Johnson Berger and housed at the Denver Art Museum. The BCET gift is the largest gift of European old masters to the DAM since the museum received the Kress Collection in the 1950s. It enriches the museum’s painting and sculpture collection, currently strong in artwork from the early Italian Renaissance and 19th-century France.
Featured works in the Berger Collection gift include a 14th-century Crucifixion, a rare survivor of the destruction of religious paintings during the reign of Henry VIII; portraits by 17th-century masters Sir Anthony van Dyck and Sir Peter Lely; a Neoclassical work referencing Roman history by Royal Academy founder Angelica Kauffman; landscapes by the British School’s preeminent artists, among them Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, and Edward Lear; and superb paintings by Sir Thomas Lawrence, George Stubbs, Benjamin West, and John Singer Sargent.
About the Founders
William Merriam Bart Berger (1925-1999) was born in Denver, a fourth-generation Coloradan. Following family tradition, he built a career in finance, for which he was nationally recognized. Bernadette Joan Johnson Berger (1940-2015), also a Denver native, grew up in western Colorado and owned farms in Kansas She raised three daughters and worked as a securities trader and stockbroker. Long-time collectors and art patrons, they chose to collect British art because of a shared love of British culture nurtured through ancestral and professional connections. The Bergers were passionate about art's potential to educate and saw their collection as a resource for adults and children alike. As they observed, "We have always believed that art, as well as music, poetry, and literature, refreshes and enriches our lives." By making their collection accessible, the Bergers hoped to foster a deeper understanding of art and history and to provide viewers with new insights into the world and themselves.
BCET
The Berger Collection Educational Trust (BCET) was created in 1999 by the late William M. B. Berger, founder with his wife Bernadette Joan Johnson Berger of the Berger Collection of British art. The Trust was established to sponsor educational activities related to the Berger Collection and to the people, culture, and history the artworks portray. Since 1996 the collection has been administered by the Denver Art Museum, where a selection of works has been on display on a rotating basis. Artworks from the collection have been on view in institutions across America and abroad, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California; the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut; the British Library, National Portrait Gallery, and Tate Britain, London; and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
Current Trustees are Mr. Arthur Lipper III, chairman; Ms. Katherine M. B. Berger, Mr. David S. Hayes, Mrs. Cynthia L. Hayes, Mr. Daniel O’Leary, Dr. Timothy J. Standring, and Dr. John H. Wilson.
Berger Prize
The William M. B. Berger Prize for British Art History
In 2001 the Berger Collection Educational Trust and The British Art Journal established a prize for excellence in the field of British art history, in honor of the late William M. B. Berger. The prize was created to recognize that some of the very finest work in art history is being carried out in the field of British art, and that much of it is being published by The British Art Journal. Since its inception, the Berger Prize has come to be recognized as the most prestigious in the field.
Award
The prize of £5,000 is awarded annually by The British Art Journal in association with the Berger Collection Educational Trust of Denver, Colorado.
Criteria
The Berger Prize is awarded annually to an outstanding book, exhibition, or exhibition catalogue (in any language) on the subject of British art history appearing during the preceding calendar year (January–December).
Assessors
A panel of no fewer than five and no more than seven assessors selects the recipient. The assessors committee includes the editor of The British Art Journal (Mr. Robin Simon), and is chaired by Dr. Timothy J. Standring, Gates Family Foundation Curator, Denver Art Museum, and Trustee of the Berger Collection Educational Trust.
Nominations
Institutions and publishers are welcome to nominate individuals they believe will fulfill the criteria set for the prize. Other nominations should be supported by the names of two individual scholars of good standing, together with their contact information.
Nominations should be made to:
The SecretaryWilliam M. B. Berger Prize for British Art HistoryThe British Art Journal46 Grove LaneLondon SE5 8ST, UKeditor@britishartjournal.co.uk
Upon the assessors’ acceptance of a nomination, copies of the work must be submitted for further consideration.
William MB Berger Prize for British Art History Prize winners and presenters
Berger Prize for 2017
The winner of the William M. B. Berger Prize for British Art History 2017 (books published January 1 – December 31, 2015) is Winifred Knights 1899–1947 by Sacha Llewellyn (Lund Humphries in association with Dulwich Picture Gallery).
2016
Giles Waterfield, The People’s Galleries. Art Museums and Exhibitions in Britain 1800–1914. Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre Centre for Studies in British Art. Presented by Professor Frances Spalding
2015
William L Pressly, James Barry’s Murals at the Royal Society of Arts: Envisioning a New Public Art. Cork University Press. Presented by Loyd Grossman
2014
Alex Bremner, Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and High Anglican Culture in the British Empire 1840–1870. Yale University Press. Presented by Professor Gavin Stamp
2013
Emily Howe, Henrietta McBurney, David Park, Stephen Rickerby, and Lisa Shekede, Wall Paintings of Eton. Scala. Presented by Professor Mark Hallett
2012
Terry Friedman, The Eighteenth Century Church in Britain. Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre. Presented by Sir Timothy Clifford
2011
Charlotte Gere and Judy Rudoe, Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria: A Mirror to the World. British Museum Press. Presented by A. N. Wilson
2010
Diana Donald and Jane Munro, eds., Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts. Yale Center for British Art/ Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge in association with Yale University Press. Presented by The Hon. Lady Roberts, Royal Librarian
2008
Thomas P. Campbell, Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty. Tapestries at the Tudor Court. Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Presented by Robin Simon
2007
John Harris, OBE, Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages. Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre. Presented by Tim Knox
2006
Judith Bronkhurst, William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonné. Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre. Presented by Desmond Shawe-Taylor
2005
Paula Henderson, The Tudor House and Garden. Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Presented by Michael Palin
2004
Derek Keene, Arthur Burns, and Andrew Saint, St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London 604-2004. Yale University Press. Presented by Professor Brian Allen
2003
Brian Andrews, Creating a Gothic Paradise: Pugin at the Antipodes (exhibition catalogue). Presented by Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber
2002
David H Solkin, Art on The Line. The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House 1780 –1836 (exhibition). Courtauld Institute/Yale University Press. Presented by Sir Roy Strong
Works
Gifts of the Berger Collection Educational Trust (PDF)
Promised Gifts of the Berger Collection Educational Trust (PDF)
You can explore works from the Berger Collection Educational Trust in the Denver Art Museum's online collection.