Photo credit: Pete Millson. petemillsonphotographer.uk
Greta Berlin
Artist/Sculptor Biography
I grew up in St Ives in the 40s-50s. The grown ups were crafts men and women, artists and Cornish fishermen and women.
I watched the potters draw up their sensual shapes and smelled the wet clay and the firing kilns.
I watched sculptors slowly reveal an image from a block of stone.
I watched the fishermen watching the horizon.
My playgrounds were the rocks, the sea and the moors.
I rolled down the steep slopes where the women dried and bleached their sheets that were held down by stones on the corners, and the fishermen dried, mended and tarred their nets.
I watched the fishermen row their dinghies, low in the water with the weight of fish collected from the mothershi-, to be sold on the wharf weighed out on huge brass scales.
I watched the old blind blue merle dog running between the wheels of the fish cart as it was pulled around the town selling to the womenfolk.
I watch the funeral cortege winding so slowly through the now quiet lanes of Down-a-long, for the silent mourners to fall in behind..
All my life I have been an observer, feeling invisible and I have learned most of what I know by osmosis.
My work is my reflection on my take of the world. Most of my images are of women because that is my point of reference. I know Woman from the inside.
Birds and dogs are a great inspiration too. I think because they both encompass so many characters; elegant to the clumsy, funny to the menacing.
I began my career as a potter, the smell of the wet clay recalling my childhood. The alchemy of the kiln firing giving constant delight. For twenty years I taught and worked with clay.
Then I met Max Barrett. A Cornish sculptor and poet-wild-man. He’d invite artists to sit round his camp-fire, he encouraged me to try stone carving. We went together to Polyphant to collect random shapes of stone and Max would drag my chosen rocks up to my site using a strap around his forehead. And I worked only in stone for two years.
Shortly after I got a commission that meant I had to learn to weld. this changed my direction again and frightened me, as had clay in the early years and, later stone. And I realized that not only did a change of medium bring a new interpretation of ideas but that the fear was part of the process and would bring an edge to the work.
These days I am interested in decay…finding old rusty steel and broken things and bring them back to life and then watch them gradually degrade and the birds to nest in them.It gives perspective to life and a sense of continuity…….
Exhibitions
2021 - Dorset Arts Week
2020 - Bridport Sculpture Trail
2017 - 'Skateboarder' Lyme Regis Sculpture Trail.
2016 - 'Creatures Weird and Wonderful' Durlston Castle. Swanage. With daughter painter Zennor Box
2016 - 'Lost Identity' Lyme Regis sculpture trail.
2015 - 'Pod' Lyme Regis sculpture Trail
2014/17 - 'Lake Side' 13 sculptures at Broomhill Art Hotel Barnstaple
2014 - 'Cycles of Life and Death' Bridport Art Centre. Retrospective with Father Sven Berlin, Painter and daughter Zennor Box, Painter
2012 - Open Studio event celebrating artists '3 score years and ten'
2011 - 'Sculpture through her Ages' Retrospective. Mill, Lyme Regis.
2010 - 'Woman.' Breast cancer Life touring exhibition.
2010 - 'Dreaming.' Town Mill Plinth, Lyme Regis. Autumn placement.
2010 - ManChild' sited in the ruins of St Gabriels Chaple, Golden Cap during the performance, by movement artist, Sandra Reeve, of 'Absence
Autumn 2008 - River Lym, The Town Mill, LymeFest.
Autumn 2008 - St Michaels Church, LymeFest
Autumn 2008 - Study Gallery Wessex Drawing Exhibition.
Spirng 2008 - Study Gallery Trig Point Exhibition.
2007 - Prize winner, Millfield open 2007
2007 - 2007 - Collaboration with colleague for her PhD perfomance at Exeter University with a series called 'Soul-Suckers'.
2002-2004 - 2002-2004 - 'Embrace'. Bournemouth University Campus. as part of Art Loan Scheme. 12feet high. Steel/plaster, for casting.
2001 - THE AXMINSTER ARTS six months placement of Mesh sculptures on disused platform of Axminster Railway station.
2001 - WHITE H'ART CLUB Falmouth. One man retrospective. Paintings, drawings and sculptures.
2001 - BROOMHILL ART HOTEL. One man. Painting, drawings, sculpture
2001 - BROOMHILL SCULPTURE PARK, (paintings, drawing, & sculptur)
2000 - AXMINSTER ARTS FESTIVAL THE MILL , Lym Regis, UK BROOMHILL SCULPTURE PARK - 2yr placement of 15ft sculpture of "Shoe"
1999 - ARTSWAY GALLERY, New Forest, Dorset, England BRIDPORT ARTS CENTRE, Bridport, Dorset, England MELBOURNE ARTS CLUB, Melbourne, Australia
1998 - ALLEN GALLERY, Alton, Hampshire, England REDHOUSE MUSEUM, Hampshire, England BROOMHILL SCULPTURE PARK, Devon, England CLOYTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL, Cloyton, Devon, England
1997 - AFRICA '97, International Touring Exhibition, Holand, Africa GARDEN GALLERY, Stockbridge, Hampshire, England BROOMHILL SCULPTURE PARK, Devon, England
1996 - GARDEN GALLERY, Stockbridge, Hampshire, England SYMONDSBURY GALLERY, Bridport, Dorset, England OPEN STUDIO, Dorset Art Week, Bridport, Dorset, England
Other previous Exhibitions
GROSVENOR GALLERY, Bridport, Dorset, England
GARDEN GALLERY, Stockbridge, Hampshire, England
DEANS COURT, Wimborne, Dorset, England
SYMONDSBURY GALLERY, Bridport, Dorset, England
BRIDPORT ARTS CENTRE, Bridport, Dorset, England
ABBOTSBURY STUDIO GALLERY, Abbotsbury, Dorset, England
OPEN STUDIO, Dorset Arts Week
GORDON HEPWORTH, Exeter, Devon, England
ALTON MUSEUM, Alton, Hampshire, England
REDHOUSE MUSEUM, Christchurch, Hampshire, England
EASTLEIGH MUSEUM, Hampshire, England
EYE GALLERY, Bristol, England
BRISTOL CATHEDRAL, Bristol, England
TURNER GALLERY, Rickmansworth, London, England
PENTONVILLE GALLERY, Camden, London, England
ECCLESTON SQUARE, London, England
PENWITH, St. Ives, England
SALT HOUSE, St. Ives, England
WINDOW GALLERY, Brighton, England
BRIGHTON POLYTECHNIC, Brighton, England
POOLE ART CENTRE, Dorset, England
THORNHILL GALLERY, Parkstone, Bournemouth, England
UNDERGROUND GALLERY, Bath, England
QUAY ARTS CENTRE, Isle of Wight, England
Commissioned Works
1989-2001
2021 - Front cover drawings; Ways of Being a Body. Volumes 1,2 & 3. Body and Awareness. Edited by Sandra Reeve https://www.triarchypress.net/ways.html Sandra Reeve ~ www.moveintolife.com
2019 - ‘Mary Anning’ commissioned for The West Dorset Walkers Welcome project – part of the Dorset Coastal Connections portfolio of 18 projects along the Dorset Coast which aim to support and boost the economies of Dorset’s coastal areas. The portfolio is funded by a grant from the government’s Coastal Communities Fund and partner organisations and coordinated by Dorset Coast Forum. This project was initiated and coordinated by Tara Hansford, Countryside Access Development Officer, Dorset Council, with support from Cleo Evans atthe Arts Development Company. The sculpture will be installed on the coastal path where it meets the Parish boundary with Charmouth/ Wootton Fitzpaine
2010 - Axminster Twinning Association, Devon, commissioned ‘Moon Birds.’ 3 Galvanized steel mobile sculptures as a gift to their twin town, to be placed in Axminster Square, Douvre, France.
2008 - Factory Women' 9feet high. Broomhill Sculpture Park. Large, decorative, cut-out steel plate, porch brackets. Private Collection.
2007 - 'Factory Women' sold to private collector
2005 - Shortlisted, to 3, for 'Shirt Factory Working-Women of Derry, Northern Ireland' celebratory Sculpture Project.
2004 - Sidmouth Fiddler. Life-size bronze. Commissioned by Rev.Canon David Slater. To celebrate 50 years of Sidmouth international Folk Festival. Unveiled by Martin Carthy MBE. Placed in Connaught Gardens, Sidmouth, Devon.
2001 - "Skateboarder." Bronze. 6ft. Wimbourne Minster. Commissioned by Sculpture in the garden.
1999 - WOLFWOMAN, welded steel sculpture, 10ft, in private collection Melbourne, Australia. EMIGRANT I, EMIGRANT II, 6ft cut and welded steel, in the collection of Melbourne Arts Club, Australia.
1997 - SKATEBOARDER, fibre glass sculpture, 6ft, in private collection, England.
1996 - "SPACE BETWEEN", carved alabaster, 30", in private collection Winchester, England.
1996 - "MUSICIAN BIRDMAN", CD album cover.
1994 - MEMORIAL STONES, J. King, Architect, New Forest, England.
1993 - HENRY FOX TALBOT, bronze civic sculpture, 7ft, commissioned by Timberlaine, Chippenham, England. HENRY FOX TALBOT, bronze maquette, commissioned for Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock, England. BIRDMAN, soapstone sculpture, in collection of Hampshire County Council, Hampshire, England.
1992 - MAX WALL, bronze resin maquette, in collection of Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, London, England and V&A collection.
1991 - CHARLES DE GAULLE, maquette, commissioned by Lady Mary Soames in conjunction with the Hayward Gallery, London, England.
1990 - LORD DENNING, bronze portrait bust, Judges Gallery, Winchester Law Courts, England. Commissioned and filmed by BBC TV South.
1989 - LORD MOUNTBATTEN, bronze civic sculpture, 9ft, commissioned by Timberlaine, Grosvenor Square, Southampton, England. LORD MOUNTBATTEN, bronze bust, 30", commissioned by Timberlaine, Mountbatten House, Grosvenor Square, Southampton, England. LORD MOUNTBATTEN, bronze maquette in the collections of: Countess Mountbatten, Lady Pamela Hicks, Lord Romsey, Southampton City Council, Pentagon Design and Construction, England. MASK PORTRAIT, Managing Director of Pentagon Design and Construction, England. Other private commissions in Vienna, Kenya, Australia, Thailand, USA, London.
Selected publications of images and/or text
2016 - Catalogue. Broomhill Art & Sculpture Foundation CIC. Muddiford Rd, Barnstaple, North Devon, EX31 4EX
2014 - August 29th. St Ives Times & Echo
2014 - August. Marshwood Vale
2012 - '70: a comma' In celebration of the work of Greta Berlin by Andrew Carey. http:/www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/detail.3448423
2013 - August 22nd. Bridport News & Echo
2013 - August 24th. Lyme Regis News
2013 - September 28th. Bridport News & Echo
2011 - Febuary 11th. Bridport News & Echo
2010 - October 8TH. St Ives Times & Echo
2010 - November 3rd. Bridport News & Echo
2010 - 'Portrait of the Artist.’ Photographs, George Wright. Writer, Lu Orza. In collaboration with Kit Glazer.
2010 - St Ives Times. October.
2010 - Bridport News. November
2007 - 2007 24th August Evening Standard London.
2007 - October. Muse Arts Magazine, Bournemouth.
2006 - April. Marshwood Vale Magazine. Dorset.
2005 - August - Romsey & District Society. Hampshire.
2005 - Summer. - Art in Devon Magazine.
2005 - Winter. - Folk on Tap. National.
2004 - 27th Febuary. - Bridport News & Echo. Dorset.
St Ives Times & Echo. Cornwall. - St Ives Times & Echo. Cornwall.
2004 - Sidmouth Herald. Devon.
2004 - Devon Life Magazine.
2002 - August. - Marshwood Vale Magazine. Dorset.
2001 - 17th Febuary - Independent. National.
2002 - 18th January - Bridport News & Echo. Dorset.
1999 - 10th March - The Age (Australia) Victoria.
1997 - 3rd October. St Ives Times & Echo. Cornwall.