Meadowlark Gallery: The Artist Biographies

Ernest Berke (1921- )
Ernest Berke was born in New York City in 1921. While working as an advertising illustrator for Sears & Roebuck for a number of years, Ernest became fascinated with the growing West. A self-taught artist and anthropologist, Berke's devotion to the West covers over four decades, completing more that 2500 paintings and nearly 80 sculptures, five of which are life-size. He has portrayed the North American Indian with considerable accuracy and sensitivity, having lived with the Northern Shoshone Indian tribe in Blackfoot, Idaho. He is the only Western artist to have been accepted to appear in the Kennedy Galleries in New York, and has been featured in the "American Artist", Sothebys, and "Southwest Art". He has had studios in Long Island and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has written and illustrated two books on the American frontier and on Indians, both commissioned by Doubleday.
View high resolution images of works by Ernest Berke when available.