John Berger (1926–2017)
Author of Ways of Seeing
About the Author
John Peter Berger was born in London, England on November 5, 1926. After serving in the British Army from 1944 to 1946, he enrolled in the Chelsea School of Art. He began his career as a painter and exhibited work at a number of London galleries in the late 1940s. He then worked as an art critic show more for The New Statesman for a decade. He wrote fiction and nonfiction including several volumes of art criticism. His novels include A Painter of Our Time, From A to X, and G., which won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Booker Prize in 1972. His other works include an essay collection entitled Permanent Red, Into Their Labors, and a book and television series entitled Ways of Seeing. In the 1970s, he collaborated with the director Alain Tanner on three films. He wrote or co-wrote La Salamandre, The Middle of the World, and Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000. He died on January 1, 2017 at the age of 90. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by John Berger
I Send You This Cadmium Red: A Correspondence Between John Berger and John Christie (2000) 63 copies, 3 reviews
La mia Russia 4 copies
Entretanto 2 copies
Selected Essays and Articles 2 copies
Rays of the Rising Sun: Armed Forces of Japan's Asian Allies 1931-45 Volume 1: China and Manchukuo (2024) 1 copy
Media And Society 1 copy
Swimming Pool 1 copy
Şiirin Saati 1 copy
Para o Casamento 1 copy
Renato Guttuso 1 copy
La valle lunga 1 copy
Associated Works
Between The Eyes: Essays On Photography And Politics (2005) — Introduction, some editions — 92 copies, 1 review
Complicite Plays: Street of Crocodiles, The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, and Mnemonic (2003) — Contributor — 15 copies
De mooiste verhalen van James Baldwin, John Berger, Jorge Luis Borges, Jane Bowles, Joseph Brodsky, Charles Bukowski,… (1990) — Contributor — 6 copies
The Seasons In Quincy: Four Portraits Of John Berger [2016 film] — Himself — 2 copies
Verso 2015 Mixtape — Contributor — 2 copies
Drawing texts — Contributor — 1 copy
Surviving visions : the art of Iri Maruki and Toshi Maruki : an exhibition at the Massachusetts College of Art, March… — Contributor — 1 copy, 1 review
Neue Rundschau 2015/2: Briefe von Milena Jesenská aus dem Gefängnis — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Berger, John
- Legal name
- Berger, John Peter
- Birthdate
- 1926-11-05
- Date of death
- 2017-01-02
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Highams Park, London, England, UK
- Place of death
- Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France
- Places of residence
- Quincy, Centre-Val de Loire, France
Haute-Savoie, France
London, England, UK
Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France - Education
- Central School of Arts and Crafts
Chelsea School of Art
St Edward's School, Oxford - Occupations
- painter
novelist
essayist
art critic
teacher (drawing)
artist - Relationships
- Berger, Jacob (son)
Marriott, Pat (spouse | divorced)
Andreadakis, Katya Berger (child)
Berger, Yves-2 (child)
Bielski, Nella (co-author) - Organizations
- British Army (1944-46)
The New Statesman - Awards and honors
- Lannan Literary Award (Lifetime Achievement ∙ 2002)
Lannan Literary Award (Fiction ∙ 1989)
Booker Prize (1972)
James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1972)
Petrarca-Preis (1991)
Golden PEN Award (2009) (show all 7)
Guardian Fiction Prize (1972)
Members
Reviews
Landscapes: John Berger on Art by John Berger
wide-ranging and insightful. I will definitely be reading more Berger in the future.
They say Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting insight. For me the book was just a lot of words that signified nothing. I read more than half and realized I was getting nothing out of it, so I finally gave up.
It's a slim book, photos make up a lot of it, and even so I didn't finish it. I liked the vignettes with his patients, but when Berger started in on philosophy and psychology, I kept waiting for it to get back to the villagers, and it never did. Another book that is probably wonderful but not for me.
Pig Earth, the first of three volumes about the movement from rural to urban life, includes poems and short stories about rural life. Berger adds a historical afterword and interprets these stories as parables. Although the book falls into the novel category, I would consider it more appropriately described as existing in the space between memory and arrangement, or between memoir and imagination. In addition to writing about his personal experiences, Berger also acts as a watcher, an eavesdropper, and a covert sharer in the stories. Berger lives in the isolated Jura.
Berger tackles subjects like the lives of hard labor, the proximity of death, and the bond between farm animals and their owners in her kind and exquisite writing. The book is worth studying as people try to understand a world in transition… (more)
Berger tackles subjects like the lives of hard labor, the proximity of death, and the bond between farm animals and their owners in her kind and exquisite writing. The book is worth studying as people try to understand a world in transition… (more)
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 144
- Also by
- 31
- Members
- 14,831
- Popularity
- #1,554
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 198
- ISBNs
- 697
- Languages
- 23
- Favorited
- 31