Oil on paper collage, circa 1975-80. 660x510 mm; 26x20 inches.
Provenance: The estate of the artist, thence by descent to the current owner, Washington, D.C.
Beerman (1923-2022) was born in Providence, Rhode Island and studied under John Frazier (1889-1966) at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where she embraced an abstract style of painting, earning her BFA degree in 1945. She then moved to New York where she studied at the Art Students League under Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1893-1953) and learned printmaking from Adja Yunkers (1900-1983) at the New School for Social Research. She earned two Fulbright Scholarships from 1954 to 1956, which took her to Paris to study with Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988) for a brief period after which she rented her own studio; her work was critiqued monthly by noted essayist and historian Marcel Brion.
When she moved back to the United States, she began teaching and during the 1960s and 1970s she developed her own unique artistic voice, transitioning from Abstract Expressionism to an Expressionist style that addressed the chaos and devastation of the world, often centering her compositions on human and animal forms. She stated: "There are some who feel they have to bear witness, and I happen to be one of them."
In 1971, her work was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, which was one of the first solo exhibitions for a female artist the museum mounted. Other significant solo exhibitions were organized by Graham Gallery, the Montclair Art Museum, the New Jersey State Museum, Everson Museum, Lawrence University, and Monmouth University. She received numerous grants and awards throughout her career including the Purchase Prize of American Academy of Arts and Letters, Pollock Krasner Foundation Award, Joan Mitchell Foundation Award and the Anonymous was a Woman Foundation Award. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum and LACMA, among others. Her work will be included in the upcoming exhibition titled "The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. from February 11-May 27, 2024.
