John Beerman

Artist Biography

John Beerman's art, prints and posters are meticulously crafted landscape visions which capture the essence of time, place and space. Whether views of the Hudson River, the southwest, or the eastern seaboard, Beerman's subtle is reminiscent of the luminist painters of the 19th century yet thoroughly contemporary in spirit and point of view. Unlike his paintings, John Beerman's works of art on paper are the result of a remarkable collaboration, a collaboration both personal and professional.

John Beerman began to work with Sylvia Roth in 1983, and his first Hudson River Editions were, appropriately, a series of art, prints and posters based on images of the Hudson River and surrounding landscape. In 1988, John married Sylvia's daughter Susan Roth Beerman, herself a painter and printer as well as a psycho-therapist. Throughout John and Sylvia's many collaborations, the color etchings and monoprints have gained in both virtuosity and technical complexity. The collaborations represent a symbiotic relationship, with John challenging Sylvia's technical skill and Sylvia training John in new ways of layering color to build structure, depth and atmosphere.

John Beerman's color etchings are complex undertakings, each requiring the printing of multiple plates on fine German etching paper. Broad bands of bright, often fluorescent and transparent inks are printed first, much in the way underpainting is built up on John's canvases. The final aquatinted plates each carry parts of the image, a tree, clouds, or rolling hill, for example, and the colors become more subtle and muted. After the landscape has been printed, marbleized or gold leaf borders are added, an integral element in all of John Beerman's work. The paper support, the framing elements, and the landscape image all interact to create art, prints and posters which relate, though stand uniquely apart, from the original painting.

John Beerman Art, Prints and Posters Collection