William Berry

William Augustus Berry (1933-2010) was an author, artist, and professor of art, known for his illustrations and colored pencil drawings. Berry earned a B.F.A. at the University of Texas, Austin in 1955 and an M.F.A from the University of Southern California in 1957. Subsequently, he worked as an illustrator and painter in New York City. In 1968, Berry began teaching art at the University of Texas, Austin, where he became the first art director of Texas Monthly Magazine. While teaching at UT Austin, he wrote his seminal textbook: Drawing The Human Form, a book widely adopted by art departments across the country and cited as "excellent" by art historian Ernst Gombrich. From 1974 to 1978, Berry taught graphic design and illustration at Boston University, School of Visual Arts. In 1978, he became professor of art at the University of Missouri, Columbia where he was given the Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Research and Creative Activity, 1983, and named a William H. Byler Distinguished Professor in 1989. He served as chair for the department from 1995-1999. The University of Missouri, in recognition of his scholarship and professional reputation, made him a Curators’ Professor in 1991. He retired in 1999 as Curators’ Professor of Art Emeritus, a title he held for life. Berry’s artwork has been in over 500 exhibitions, in the U.S. and abroad, receiving over 100 awards and prizes. Among the galleries that showed his work are: the Galleria Schneider, Rome, Italy; the Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, VA; United States Information Agency Gallery, Athens, Greece; Espace Reduit, Cassis, France; and the Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco. In 1990, Mid-America Arts Alliance and Exhibits USA, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, sponsored a three-year traveling exhibition of 32 of Berry's large colored pencil drawings. In 2002, he received the CPSA Award for Exceptional Merit and CIPPY Trophy from the Colored Pencil Society of America. Public collections owning his work include: the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Addison Gallery, Andover, MA; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks; the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, PA; and the Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, MO. Publications of Berry’s illustrations, in a wide variety of media and styles, have been featured in various periodicals, such as The Reporter, Harper's, The New Leader, Esquire, Holiday Magazine, and Newsweek. Berry created covers for books published by Random House, Doubleday, Alfred A. Knopf, Charles Scribner's Sons, Time Inc., and others. Upon his retirement from teaching, Berry continued to be prolific - merging long-used techniques with new emphasis on combining computer-based images, photography, collage, and watercolor. His subject matter echoed earlier themes: still life, European architecture, political images, imaginary landscapes, and self-portraits, which number in the hundreds. Berry's late works were executed in a loose style and expressive manner, which inadvertently document the progression of Parkinson’s disease-related symptoms.

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