| John Berkey Artwork |
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***NEW!*** Calendar 2 Page has 99 images, and the newest images are on Calendar 1 Page!  My latest acqusition is John Berkey's 1974 Calendar -- and I finally found the missing 1968 May page!!  * * * JOHN BERKEY Artwork Born 1932 / Died April 29, 2008
There are 976 John Berkey paintings on this site, plus 85 or so enlarged details of illustrations -- a total of 1050+ images -- and more to come!
Most other Internet websites just show 20-30 of John Berkey's really great spaceship paintings -- I have done my best to track down his other more "rare" art! * * * !!*NEW*!! I've located another Berkey painting that no one has seen in 40+ years!... (I will post more info about it "soon")  * * * **NEW**: Greg Pro has posted more of his 1998 footage of his visit to John Berkey's studio on Facebook:  See it at: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=418679571871&oid=309907436016  And here's the art that John was working on!...  **NEW** Vincent DiFate sent me a scan of Berkey's "Deer Me" Prelim that he owns!!!  This beautiful Berkey prelim has NEVER been seen before on the Internet, and I give Vincent DiFate a sincere heartfelt "Thank you!" for sharing it with me -- Berkey's 1998 "Deer Me, Me Deer" illustration was done for the ILLUSTRATORS 41 submission poster (which has always been one of my favorites!)...  * * * An exceptionally NICE Berkey farm painting!!   BELOW: An very "impressionistic" rainy day street scene (which is signed "Berkey" so we know it's his)...  * * * !!!!!*OTIS ELEVATOR AD*!!!!! Berkey collector Sebastian R. found this 1975 ad and sent it to me...  * * *  BELOW: This 1980 ad was also used on the cover of the December 1985 AMERICAN ARTIST magazine (I always wondered why the sky in this painting was a bright RED, and now we know why the sky was painted RED -- it's because this was an ad for Johnny Walker RED!):  * * * Pretty neat pic, eh? John Berkey's 1973 reference photo of his son Brian posing with his BB gun!!   (The full painting is further down this page...) * * * BELOW: Another John Berkey Riverboat/Steamship (I'm hoping to acquire a clearer pic of this painting)....  BELOW: John Berkey mentioned in this 2002 TV GUIDE:  John's 1991 Hubert Humphrey stamp  * * * Has anyone ever seen this Berkey painting?  A Berkey collector remembers seeing this illustration in a magazine in a dentist's office back around 1978... (that is his sketch he did from memory)... "I still clearly recall seeing in a magazine a tiny reproduction of a painting of a Future Farm scene. It had long white metal tracks in the ground, very large, that stretched out from the farm to a distant future city. The parallel tracks created a strong, low perspective. Various lateral bridges scrolled on the tracks watering and fertilizing the crops. There might have been an operator (farmer?) in a glass bubble on one of the tracks. It was a superb concept and marvelously painted in a style between a prelim and a finely finished painting." Can anyone help us find this one??? * * * John Berkey's 3 2006 Chinese Book Covers:     ABOVE: Compare this "blue" tinted painting to the above "red" tinted Chinese book cover... look at how the spaceship on the Chinese book cover has been moved lower so that the planet would show on the cover's tight squarish layout! Interesting, eh? Did Berkey repaint this painting for them? Or did the Chinese publishers use their Photoshop department to move the spaceship and adjust the color to be more red?.... * * * John did 4 illustrations for the 1993 POPULAR MECHANICS:  (NOTE: He did the plane, not the sky...)   BELOW: John did these 2 paintings of the Wright Brothers' airplane for this issue...   Here is the real pic of the 1st flight at Kitty Hawk....  * * * 1965-69 Board Games with Berkey art covers!  John and his son posed for the "Break Thru" figures playing the game!      * * * A Berkey Barn Original in its frame...  ...and here's what it looks like out of its frame with the picture taken with a different camera and different lighting!  * * * Berkey's super-rare 1968 & 1970 SPORTS AFIELD Annuals!! No other website has posted these wonderful paintings, and they have undoubtably not been seen by any Berkey fan in 40 years!!!   BELOW: On the contents page they would print a small black & white version of the issue's cover without any of the lettering, so we can more-or-less see the "entire" paintings...  * * * Here are John Berkey's 4 art prints that were published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY in 1982!     * * * A SPECTACULAR RIVERBOAT PRINT... Two weeks ago I never knew that this wonderful Berkey riverboat painting existed -- I was contacted by a person in Arizona who had purchased several things at an estate sale, and this was among them -- she saw my website and got in touch with me, and she was kind enough to sell me this really nice New Orleans riverboat art print...  There are over 100 people painted into that crowd scene!  And here's a close up of the riverboat...  ANOTHER LUCKY FIND Our local library was having a book sale and I found this 1971 Berkey cover on PENMARRIC (which was not on the checklist nor posted on any other Berkey website)...  * * * DINOTOPIA artist/author James Gurney saw this Webpage and offered this comment: Hi, Jim, John Berkey's paintings are a kind a visual music, showing the power of abstraction to reach pure lyricism. Somehow that lyrical spirit fit perfectly with our dreams of exploring space. When I met him in 1983, his studio reminded me of a cross between the bridge of a starship and a naturalist's research station, tuned into the strange sounds of the woods around him. All the best, James Gurney / May 2010  ABOVE: James Gurney did the 1983 STARRIGGER cover on the left, and John Berkey did the 1984 sequel cover on the right -- so I asked James Gurney if these book illustrations had anything to do with his visit to John's studio, and he replied: Hi, Jim, Yes, it was a trip to have John Berkey, one of my heroes, match my design for the Starrigger cover. He did a sequel at a time that I was booked up. Cheers, James Gurney ************************************** JUST FOUND: A 1991 "Starflight" computer game cover by Berkey!!   * * * Movie poster artist Drew Struzan saw this webpage and offered these comments:
Jim,
Your web site is amazing. All the work and research are an honor to you and what a kindness to Mr. Berkey! I am so glad to see you keeping the man's work alive; he certainly deserves all you have done. Far too many lives of greatness simply pass away as do the lilies of the field. Thank you for not letting John's gifts fade with time. His gifts can work good, peace and happiness far beyond for all time if protected... I never knew him, only his work and inspiration, and I still marvel at it all. I have accepted his gifts with modesty and appreciation.
Thank you for your efforts... drew / May 2010
*************************************** I've located 3 more Berkey SPORTS AFIELD illustrations!!! Here's the first one, the cover of the May 1969 issue...   Here's the 2nd one, from SPORTS AFIELD Nov 1968...   And this beautiful Berkey painting was in SPORTS AFIELD September 1968....   AN INTERESTING OBSERVATION ABOUT JOHN BERKEY'S SIGNATURE ON THE ABOVE 2 PAINTINGS -- HE SIGNED THEM IN A WAY I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE! HE SIGNED THEM "J.BERKEY"  * * * Artist Stephen Youll sees this website: Hi Jim, This is one of the best retrospective art websites I’ve seen to date. It’s astonishing to see just how diverse an artist John was. To be credited with such a range of subject matter from one end of the spectrum to the other is a testament to his craft as an illustrator. I am familiar with his Sci Fi art and movie and advertising work, but to see the array of natural history subjects was quite a thrill for me. John had an innate sense of how to create a wow factor that I would have loved to have seen translated on the movie screen. His space ship designs have inspired many a well known illustrator working in the field of science fiction, but how could it not? It was, and still is hard to top. What John created in paint back then seems only something that can be achieved using sophisticated computer software today. He created an energy and magic that used to make me marvel at this technique and vision. John was one of our true treasures who should have been showered with more awards and honors that have been bestowed on artists with a fraction of his ability. It’s hard to pick a favorite painting, there are so many great ones. Whether its a quiet tug boat from a new England scene, or a starship sailing the winds of time, John Berkey’s art has secured a place in history. Thanks Jim for the Great Site - It’s a beauty. Stephen Youll / May 2010 * * * A year or so ago I saw a "small" jpeg of Berkey's 1966 University of Minnesota Medical School painting, and I finally acquired a print of it!...   BELOW: A couple of extremely rare & "semi-lost" nature paintings...   BELOW: An unpublished Berkey illustration done for a 1988 National Geographic that I found on the Internet:  This really great illustration WAS in that March 1988 National Geographic:  And it was reprinted in the 1999 FIRST PEOPLES book in black & white:  BELOW: John Berkey's illustrations that he did for a 1973 fold-out "triptic" SF Book Club flyer:     John Berkey's 1978 poster for the first STAR TREK movie:  BELOW: D.C. in TV Guide November 14, 1987 -- (it only took me a year to find this one because the Checklist did not list the issue it was in):   BELOW: SHOWTIME vs. the HBO Crocodille was in the March 3, 1984 TV GUIDE:   * * * LUCKY FINDS... I think it's safe to say that no SF fan of Berkey's art has seen any of these nature paintings in 30-40 years! Did Berkey ever do a painting of a moose....?  YES!!! I just found Berkey's moose painting this week in the March 1970 issue of SPORTS AFIELD -- here's the moose -- and here is that extremely nice double-page illustration!   BELOW: Berkey's hunting painting in the November 1973 SPORTS AFIELD...  ...And here's the entire illustration!  * * * Artist Brandon Peterson sees this Webpage: Hi Jim, I am very familiar with Mr. Berkey's artwork, he comes from a class of illustrators that you don't see much of these days, masters of real paint with astounding productivity. No 3D, photo paintovers, photoshop retouching and color adjusting and all our modern tomfoolery; its all done for real on real canvas. I've just spent almost an hour on your site and I'm completely stunned with how narrow a focus of the man's work I was actually familiar with -- just the Sci-Fi stuff that's most common. I especially liked the nature paintings in the sporting magazines like "Sports Afield" and such. I really like the shot of the boy with a rifle behind a tree and the deer in the clearing for "The Great Morning" from the 1973 "Sports Afield". As for a favorite, I got the "John Berkey Painted Space" book while I was a teenager and I still have it, it's almost 20 years old by now and about ready to fall apart, but that cover still is what I think about when I think about his art. An astounding amount of work on your site, well researched and documented, a true find. Very impressive and thorough. Best, Brandon Peterson / May 2010  I agree with Brandon, the cover painting of Berkey's PAINTED SPACE book is a spectacular painting! * * * Another super-rare/unlisted/never reprinted Berkey fishing painting from SPORTS AFIELD February 1970:   SPORTS AFIELD December 1971:   SPORTS AFIELD August 1971:   SPORTS AFIELD October 1972:  SPORTS AFIELD August 1970:   SPORTS AFIELD February 1972 prelim & cover:   Again, this cover has never been posted on any other Berkey website, nor was it listed in Jane Frank's Checklist -- I was lucky to find it!! * * * Vincent Di Fate sees this website!  I knew that Vincent Di Fate has been a great admirer of John Berkey's art and a number of his paintings over the years have been inspired by John (like Vincent's 2009 painting for a Ben Bova novel, above), so in March 2010 I contacted Vincent and told him about my Berkey website -- and here is what Vincent wrote back to me: Thanks for sending me the link to your Berkey site. What an impressive assortment of John's work--I knew John's SF work very well, and I was familiar with a fair amount of his advertising art and his work for Brown and Bigelow, but there are some really neat surprises on your site. I applaud your efforts. Please let me know if I can help in some way. Best of luck, Vincent Di Fate (And he did help out, he sent me his "Deer Me" prelim!) * * * BELOW: EDDIE BAUER has unveiled a new ad display in their stores in March 2010 where they have reprinted some of their old catalog covers, including John Berkey's 1989 catalog cover:  BELOW: A friend of mine found this Berkey in SPIN magazine January 1999 and forwarded it to me -- this was not on Jane Frank's Checklist, nor has it ever been reprinted -- in fact, I would guess that not one single fan of Berkey's SF art has ever seen this SPIN magazine painting! Again, I've rescued another nice Berkey painting from the black hole of obscurity...   BELOW: The MADWAND promo poster next to the MADWAND book cover:  BELOW: The original for Berkey's 1981 ARMADA bookcover sold on the Heritage Auction Gallery website in May 2010 for $2,031:  BELOW: A really nice Brown & Bigelow silver foil print (year unknown) of Berkey's AERIAL PIONEERS planes (I would really like to see this original painting!)... and the other 3 foil prints of the set....   Berkey's 1970 Harbor Tug art print...  * * * John Berkey's 1st painting for SPORTS AFIELD! The January 1967 SPORTS AFIELD cover (which was printed on page 10 of Jane Frank's book and was actually painted in 1965)...  A Big Surprise: John Berkey's 1975 BERMUDA TRIANGLE Board Game for Milton Bradley!!   * * * Comic book artist Michael Wm Kaluta saw this website: Q: Do you have any favorite BERKEY paintings?
They all astound, but one that impressed the heck out of me was a downshot of a mirror-hulled spaceship at rest on a field of grain with soldiers all about the base, reflected in the hull... It appears as the cover of Deathworld 3, by Harry Harrison, in your Berkey Art Gallery (berkey_368) jeepers! THAT is Science Fiction!!!!
Q: Have you seen any of BERKEY's nature art before?
Not knowingly...
Q: Have you seen something on my site that you'd never seen before that you really really like?
TONS!!!!
Q: When did you first take notice BERKEY's art? Probably when the first cover art started coming out: I was deep into my SF reading at that time, so I had to see his work from the first day on the stands. Michael Wm Kaluta / May 2010  ***** GLIDE PATH from 1981 was a real hard one to find... but I found it!  There have been far too many earthquakes lately...and here is John's 1986 earthquake cover he did for DISCOVER magazine... 
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The Oldest Berkeys I've Ever Seen! Two of John Berkey's originals from the 1950s were for sale on eBay -- they are definitely from John Berkey's very, very "early" period, and could have been done as calendars or TUCO puzzles...  "The Ice Truck" sold on eBay April 2010 for $560  BELOW: "The Cloth Salesman" sold on eBay April 2010 for $495    BELOW: At first I thought that this "Threshing Ring" puzzle was an early painting by Berkey (because it really matches the style of the two paintings above), but after further investigation I found out that it is NOT by Berkey, it's by an artist named William Medcalf... (I wonder if he worked in the same studio with Berkey back there in the 1950s?...)  A MYSTERY.... BELOW: The 1970 DREAMING SUBURB -- is this a Berkey?? It's NOT on the Jane Frank Checklist, but it sure looks like a Berkey... but the inside credits say that this cover is by "Ann Meisel"...  THE MYSTERY IS SOLVED!!! The "BERK" of BERKEY's signature is faintly visable in the grass to the right of the dog!!! It was so faded that it couldn't be seen with the naked eye, I had to use a magnifying glass!  BELOW: This Berkey prelim of the Lusitania sinking...  BELOW: Berkey's "impressionistic" Bluefin Tuna from the June 1973 SPORTS AFIELD (that was not listed on Jane Frank's Checklist)...    I finally managed to acquire a copy of Berkey's spectacular Space Shuttle Challenger poster (there are some copies for sale on eBay right now)...  ...two of Berkey's shuttle prelims...   ...and in 1986 when the Space Shuttle blew up Berkey did this series of 5 paintings for DISCOVER magazine (only the middle one is usually reprinted, the first 2 and the last 2 of the sequence are never shown)...    BELOW: Berkey's futuristic "flying mini van" from the February 2000 issue of POPULAR MECHANICS....  BELOW: Berkey's 1972 STAR 2 cover has always been one of my favorites!...  I asked Frederik Pohl to look at this webpage, I received this reply from his assistant: Dear Mr. Pinkoski, You’ve put together an extensive collection indeed of the paintings of John Berkey; thank you! Mr. Pohl has received your note, and if he can respond to it usefully, he will do so. Sincerely yours, Richard D. Erlich / May 2010 * * * WHICH WAY IS "UP"?...  ABOVE: The 1972 STAR SCIENCE FICTION 4 cover has the spaceship facing downward, but all the subsequent printings of this painting like in SF AGE magazine has the spaceship going "up"... SO WHICH IS RIGHT? This had perplexed me for many years -- but I just solved this mystery! If you look closely on the book cover, you can see where they removed Berkey's signature -- so the book printed the painting up-side down! And they had to remove the signature which would have been up-side down! MYSTERY SOLVED! * * * MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009!! This week I've managed to find nearly two dozen new Berkeys to post!!!!  ABOVE/BELOW: Back in 1976 I saw this awesome Berkey Otis Elevator Company painting in ILLUSTRATORS 18, but for some reason I only managed to save a b&w xerox of it all these years -- I began to believe it was only printed in b&w -- but recently I did some research and found out that it was printed in COLOR, so this week I finally got a copy of the book and now I have this incredibly nice future city painting in FULL COLOR!! (...hmmm, it only took 33 years...)  BELOW: Another really nice Berkey future city painting for the Otis Elevator Company from ILLUSTRATORS 17 in 1976 (which I never saw until this week):  ....and here is another earlier Berkey future city painting in ILLUSTRATORS 16...  BELOW: A small print of this was printed in OMNI in the early 1980s, but I have no idea where it was originally published:  BELOW: Berkey's painting for U.S. Steel that was printed in ILLUSTRATORS 26 in 1985:  BELOW: Berkey's "Buick in a Junkyard" from the March 1983 ROAD & TRACK magazine:   BELOW: This was a big surprise, I found a 3rd non-King Kong jigsaw puzzle by Berkey that was not listed on anyone's checklist nor posted on any other website!!... (the other 2 Berkey puzzles are posted on PAGE 2)...  ...and notice how the box cover didn't show the right side of the puzzle!...  BELOW: This is perhaps the most recently published Berkey book cover -- for the August 2009 "Flights of Eagles"!!... (and below it is another Blish book published in 2008)...   BELOW: As far as I can tell, this was an unused poster for the 1979 movie Meteor starring Sean Connery -- this was printed in the 1981 ILLUSTRATORS 22...   ABOVE: A Berkey building in ILLUSTRATORS 18 that looks like it might have been done for a Brown & Bigelow calendar! / BELOW: A Berkey house in ILLUSTRATORS 15:  BELOW: "The Genius" was in the ROAD & TRACK August 1985 issue...  ...and John did at least 3-4 other prelims for this model car illustration...  BELOW: A Berkey from the October 1983 ROAD & TRACK (which wasn't listed on Jane Frank's Checklist), it was just pure luck that I found this magazine:  BELOW: Oil drilling platform in a storm, printed in ILLUSTRATORS 28...   ABOVE: Perhaps one of the "oddest" Berkey space paintings... there's something resembling a turkey gizzard head there... from ILLUSTRATORS 24 in 1983!  ABOVE: Berkey's art for the 1975/76 book The Glass Inferno, this was in ILLUSTRATORS 17 -- I have yet to find a copy of the pocketbook. * * * Michael Friedlander's 1st Visit to John Berkey's Home  ABOVE: Michael Friedlander published the 1991 PAINTED SPACE art book and the two collections of John Berkey Trading Cards -- and the above picture was taken in 1990 on Michael's 1st visit to John Berkey's house and his art storage room! Michael put together an 13-page Tribute to John Berkey when John died in 2008 -- if anyone would like for me to e-mail those pages to you, please contact me and request them.  Here is Michael Friedlander's comment about this website:
Hi Jim, just wanted to drop you an e-mail to let you know that your John Berkey section is fantastic! There were several images that I had never seen... thank you sincerely for taking the time to post them. I loved the man and his art, and seeing a painting that I had never seen before is always a big thrill.
my best,
Michael Friedlander
Michael also got to paint on the PAINTED SPACE book cover painting:
FYI- John never used photoshop or any electronic software to paint, only his paints. I was watching him paint the cover to the Painted Space book when he insisted that I sit down at his easel and paint "a few strokes." I did but I can tell you that it was a nerve-racking experience! It was unbelievable to sit in his chair and try to paint looking through his mirror system. It really played with your brain and vision because it truly acted as a way to walk 20 feet away from the painting without ever leaving the easel. Hope that makes sense!
best,
Michael
* * * BELOW: Berkey did 7 interior illustrations for the Dec. 1995 POPULAR MECHANICS:          ABOVE: Berkey's FAST FREIGHTER from POPULAR MECHANICS Nov. 1994 (which has never been reprinted anywhere nor posted on any other webpage!) -- Berkey did 2 illustrations of this incredibly neat ship, the other is further down this webpage! * * * BELOW: Berkey's awesome 1988 Futurerail Monorail prelim & finished painting!!  BELOW: Here's the Futurerail poster print that was POPULAR MECHANICS June 1988, next to the size the "smaller" print of it appeared in Jane Frank's book...  BELOW: A previously unpublished/unposted prelim!...   ABOVE: Popular Mechanics July 1994 / BELOW: Nov. 1991   BELOW: Berkey's space telescope illustration in the Dec. 1985 LIFE Magazine:   BELOW: By luck alone I found these 3 Berkey fly-fishing illustrations inside the Feb. 1975 SPORTS AFIELD that was not listed on Jane Frank's Checklist!...    (NOTE: I know where the above 2 originals are for sale, contact me if you're interested.) Click here to go to Page 2 continued....
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