This is a RARE Fine Important Black African American Modern Portrait Painting, Oil on Black Velvet, by esteemed African American Modernist painter, and decorated Vietnam War Veteran, Todd Berrien (b. 1945.) This artwork depicts the masterful portrait of a young African American mother and her young child. The woman gazes confidently in the viewer's direction and wears a teal head covering with gold trim. Her son stares balefully at the viewer, with welled up emotion in his large eyes. Signed: "Todd Berrien" in the lower left. This piece likely dates to the early - mid 1970's. Original artworks by Todd Berrien are very scarce, and this piece dates back to his early years as a working artist in Los Angeles, California. Nowadays, Berrien is a renowned contemporary artist in Sarasota, Florida, who has exhibited his work at the ASALH: Black Muse Exhibition in 2016 and focuses on social justice, American military veteran and civil rights themes. Approximately 22 5/8 x 30 1/2 inches (including frame.) Good condition for decades of age and storage, with a few tiny scuffs to the painted surface, and moderate dust, debris and speckles of light soiling to the black velvet canvas (please see photos.) Acquired from an old collection in Los Angeles, California. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks!
About the Artist:
Todd Berrien
Berrien sold his first painting on a Harlem street corner in 1970. “I came of age in the thick of the American apartheid era—the Civil Rights Movement. As an ‘Army brat’ and then Army officer, I grew up in the ruins of post-war Germany, the segregated south and the streets of Harlem,” he says. With large dynamic portrait paintings, Berrien expresses the pain, pride, beauty and triumph of being black, and a Vietnam veteran, in America. His work, which belongs within the tradition of social realism, depicts a broad spectrum of human emotions and expression meant to transcend the everyday, to lift personal experiences beyond the common understanding and give a more complete understanding of American history.
TODD BERRIAN
(The Distinguished Flying Cross Society, Second Edition 2004)
"Graduated from WOFWAC in 1964 and deployed to Vietnam in 1966, the youngest "Caribou" aircraft commander in the 1st Cav. Div. He was awarded the DFC for extraordinary airmanship on Jan. 4, 1967 when called out on an emergency mission in such severe weather that med-evac helicopters at the forward base camp were unable to fly. CWO Berrien maneuvered his C-7A aircraft through driving rain, extreme turbulence and gale force winds for a seemingly impossible landing and takeoff at the landing zone to evacuate a seriously wounded American soldier, thus saving his life.
After military service, he worked as an airline pilot, advertising creative director, and fine artist. He graduated magna cum laude with a BA degree from the Univ. of North Carolina. Todd lives in Los Angeles with his wife Dolores. He has three children: Dawn, Jenelle and Todd David. He is a member of the DFC Society and life member of the DAV."
Black Muse: Powerful African American art at Art Center Sarasota
Art Center Sarasota showcases powerful works by African-American artists.
An African goddess, her robes blowing in an invisible breeze. A man surrendering with his hands up. The stylized mask of an exuberant, 21st century child. These are some of the images you’ll see at the “ASALH: Black Muse 2016” exhibition at Art Center Sarasota this Thursday, Jan. 28.
In recognition of Black History Month, this annual exhibit showcases works by member artists of the Manasota chapter of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (ASALH). The first show took place in 2002; Art Center Sarasota has hosted the exhibition since 2008.
This year’s exhibition will feature pieces in a range of media by Todd Berrien, Dr. Jacquelyn E. Dix, Major P. Gladdon, Robert Hayden, Barbara Mask, Jean McMurren, Eleanor Merritt, Myrna Morris, Michele Redwine, Carolyn Rice, Brenda Robinson, Ed Swan and Jane Thame. What are these artists trying to say in their work?
We asked, and they were happy to tell us.
Eleanor Merritt is an award-winning painter and a member of the Florida Artists Group and the Petticoat Painters. Her multi-media paintings in this exhibition include the ethereal visage of “Midnight Goddess,” the haunting faces of the “Ancestor Series” and the phalanx of warriors of “Totem Guardians.”
Stylistically, she’s equally fluent in the possibilities of acrylic, oils and watercolors and mixed-media art. Merritt creates in the two-dimensional space of a flat canvas, but she believes her best work can be four-dimensional.
“Art can open up a window in time,” she says. “My recent work incorporates African-American fabrics and layering and texturing patterns. It speaks of the heritage of the past, but it carries these traditions into the future. It’s a way of reclaiming our legacy and keeping it alive.”
Barbara Mask has submitted a single work: “Black Lives Matter.” This powerful, timely painting depicts a mournful, elderly black woman with a picture of a young black man under her arm.
“The rituals and ceremonies of my youth still resonate with me,” she says. “But sometimes I speak to what’s happening now. The news of the day can’t be ignored.”
According to Mask and the other artists we spoke with, talented African-American artists shouldn’t be ignored, either.
Merritt has a track record of fighting for underrepresented artists of all descriptions. She earned a Women’s Caucus for Art National President’s Award for a program she created to give recognition and exhibition space to women artists.
“African-American artists continue to be marginalized,” she says. “Year after year, ‘Black Muse’ brings their work to the forefront.”
Lisa Berger, Art Center Sarasota’s executive director, quietly affirms her commitment to this mission.
“We’re a community art center,” she says. “These African-American artists are part of our community. They truly deserve to be seen. Making sure they do is part of what we do.”
ART REVIEW: A Muse of Fire
Marty Fugate, Correspondent (ASALH: Black Muse 2020, Art Center Sarasota, Florida)
Todd Berrien’s “American Boy” is no boy. The subject of the large-scale oil portrait is an African American man. He regards you with a cool, steady gaze. Currents of intelligence, history and pain flow beneath the surface of his poker face. Berrien colors outside the lines of realism and builds the portrait with layers of fractured color like the reflections of some mad neon display.
'Veterans of Color,' fighting for country and equality
Thomas Tryon, 2015
Todd Berrien, a black pilot who flew missions in Vietnam in 1966-67, described the isolation and discrimination he experienced in the service. "At every turn, every day, they were after us, to get us out."
Berrien, an accomplished artist who now lives in Sarasota, captured his feelings on canvas. One of his paintings is titled "Stars and Bars." It features the face of a black man in military uniform, with vertical prison bars.
Despite having sustained post-traumatic stress syndrome -- "the fire that burns in your head" after war, Berrien called it -- he appears at peace and has experienced a fine career in the arts.
Sarasota City Commissioner Willie Shaw's career followed Berrien's -- from 1967-71 -- and, while the nation had begun to change, black soldiers were still steered to the positions with less prestige. Nevertheless, Shaw said, he served in the military out of a sense of "honor and patriotism."
Now entering his second term in elected office, Shaw is an example of America's progress.