Warhol’s flowers on display

FLowers of Distinction

Andy Warhol

Through Nov. 30

The Michael Berger Gallery

415… FLowers of Distinction

Andy Warhol

Through Nov. 30

The Michael Berger Gallery

415 Gettysburg St.

Point Breeze

(412) 441-4282

“I have to say, I loved your entrance,” Sherle Berger says as I walk through the door. Not an uncommon remark when I dismount from my white Vespa, parked right outside the building’s glass front.

The space looks like any other modern office, save the tri-colored, glass-block monolith displayed in the front window and two rather unassuming paintings of Chinese daily life.

I introduce myself and shake her hand. “I’m here to interview Michael for The Pitt News,” I say. An older man sits next to a woman in front of a computer screen. They talk quietly as they click through a picture slideshow. “He’s with a client right now,” Sherle says, leading me up a ramp into a narrow, rectangular room with one glass table and one wooden bench.

The walls are typical gallery white. Ten watercolor paintings – five on each side – line the blank pallets. Fire-engine red aluminum lights hang from the ceiling, illuminating the room with energy-efficient halogen lights. One giant, orange orchid oil proudly arrests my gaze straight ahead. “Why don’t you look around,” Sherle suggests.

Michael Berger has been showing art since 1969. For 20 years, he held open-to-the-public exhibitions of contemporary artists at his home every Saturday and Sunday from 2 – 5 p.m. – unless, of course, there was a Steelers game.

This gallery was the first to bring artists like Milton Avery, Alex Katz, Joseph Albers, Andy Warhol and Sol Lewitt into the art world. Berger attributes his taste to his training and experience.

“Most of the time I see something I want to own myself,” he says. Berger has 50 years of collecting experience and a master’s in art history from Pitt to back him up.

Regarding the rest of Berger’s story, he says, “Well, I could give you a book.”

Graduating from Harvard University, Berger found solace during the lonely winters of Massachusetts at Harvard’s Fogg Galleries. In 1959, he acquired a Milton Avery work from a friend for the price of $250, which sparked the subject for his master’s thesis. The piece is now valued at around $50,000.

Then he went into construction. Yes, pick-up-trucks-and-backhoes construction. For 35 years, Berger ran a construction business five days a week and the exhibitions on the weekends.

This is the second gallery Berger and Sherle have opened – the third if you count Berger’s house. The former space on Penn Avenue was “huge and cavernous,” according to Sherle. Smaller and much more intimate, this space even has its own sitting room with wicker kitchenette chairs and a Native American rug.

Warhol’s fame and collectability were certainly influential in choosing this exhibit to open the new gallery as well as the small number of pieces in the suite. “The smart thing would be to hold onto them for another four or five years, but we had a new space to inaugurate,” Berger remarks. “What’s important about a work of any artist is how much of the artist’s hand goes into the art.” And that’s what the prices in Berger’s gallery reflect.

The flowers have quite a bit of Warhol’s own hand. Devoid of bold, signature style, “Flowers of Distinction” are watercolor-and-silkscreens made by Warhol in 1974. Challenging the ways we normally look at flowers and the genre of still-life itself, these one-of-a-kind prints are presented in minimalist fashion, completely atypical of the average Warhol.

Individually signed and numbered, each flower is hand colored in delicate washes and subtle gradients, making typical pop art look brutish and commercial. The fine watercolor paper gives a particularly organic feeling to the entire art piece. The silk screens are pencil thin, and sketched black ink lines flow flawlessly over the watercolor stains.

So where did these odd works of the world-famous artist come from? “They had been sitting under the guest bedroom bed for four or five years. We bought them four or five years ago,” Berger admits.

Seems a bit unholy for these priceless works of art to be kept where you keep your old sneakers. For Berger, however, art is anything but unholy and priceless.

His business is geared to the small collector as well as to families looking to make an investment. For that reason, the pieces are selected from what Berger calls “museum-quality works by internationally recognized artists or emerging artists,” and priced relatively reasonably. So, if someone wants a Warhol, he or she can own one without paying tens of thousands of dollars.

In 1993, Berger finally hung up the hard hat and went into semi-retirement. Concentrating on his art exhibitions, the Michael and Sherle Berger Foundation and the Michael Berger Gallery, his aim was to bring “awareness of fine international art to western Pennsylvania, establish a level of quality not otherwise available to the region, and encourage families to live with fine art as a counter to the mindless violence and tasteless entertainment dominating today’s visual environment.”

Berger encourages parents and kids to “shut off the television and the GameBoy” and go look at art.