Bertschmann challenged every stylistic movement that emerged after World War II through the 2010s. His deep dives into different contemporary styles — and his persistent practice of returning to probe them again and again throughout his life — was unlike that of any other artist. Just as it seemed he had pushed a style as far as it could go, he would return to it a decade later and produce another innovative series within that style. That’s why it’s not easy tracking one who applied a boundless vision matched by a fastidious approach to execution. After all, we’re so used to picturing an artist’s life work as evolving along a steady path that starts with early training, is followed by experiments, and upon maturity settles on a particular visual pursuit. Plotted on a graph, it looks like a steadily rising slope. For those artists who peaked and then lost their creative edge as they aged, their graphs look like a bell curve. Bertschmann defies being graphed. This artistic polymath led a non-linear artistic life. He not only mastered multiple trajectories but kept returning to them, discovering ever new dynamics in expression. In order to help you absorb the extraordinary diversity and depth of his life’s work, we have organized his collection into 8 basic Style Categories — within which you will discover 35 distinctive Series he named.
The New York Times: The Struggling Artist at 86
Peter Falk, Editor June 23, 2020
