Color woodcut on fibrous Japan paper, circa 1945-50. 227x343 mm; 9x13 1/2 inches, full margins. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. A superb impression of this extremely scarce woodcut with richly-inked, strong colors.
Berry (1886-1978) was born and raised in New Gloucester, Maine, and attended the University of Michigan, intending to become a marine engineer. After graduation, he returned to New England and joined an architectural firm in Portland, Oregon, and was soon working on the construction of the Panama Canal. He returned to the U.S. after contracting malaria in Panama, and started attending classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, eventually becoming a commercial artist in New York. In 1917, he volunteered for service in the U.S. Army in World War I and worked in the Camouflage Division.
After the war, Berry settled in Chicago and worked as a commercial artist and illustrator. During the Depression, Berry and his wife left Chicago and moved back to New England, where they bought a house in Wiscasset, Maine. The Berrys sold their house in Wiscasset following World War II and bought a home in Rockport, Maine, near which Berry maintained a studio equipped with a printing press, from where he honed his printmaking skills, including color woodcut and linoleum cuts. The current woodcut was likely produced in a very small edition, with Berry having carved multiple blocks for each of the colors used in the image.
