Ben Berns (NC, 1926-2007), Moore's Knob

Oil on paper, unsigned, retaining label to verso, float mounted and framed below Plexiglass.

Sheet size 19 3/4 x 27 5/8 in.; Frame dimensions 29 1/8 x 36 1/2 in.

Private Collection, North Carolina

Ben Berns was a Dutch-born American painter known for his meticulously rendered realist landscapes. Born in Ginnejen, The Netherlands, Berns moved to North Carolina in the mid-1960s to teach at UNC Greensboro. Self-taught after leaving school at age 14, he began painting at the age of eight. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971, he taught lithography at the Pratt Institute in New York before settling in North Carolina, where he taught at the university from 1970 to 1982. Working on site in the traditional Dutch manner of landscape painting, Berns created sweeping vistas of rolling hills and forests, primarily inspired by the countryside of Stokes County, North Carolina.

Bern's work is held in prestigious collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Library of Congress, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art, and the Weatherspoon Gallery of Art. Berns favored a cool, green toned palette and worked with precise detail to capture the forms and textures of the natural landscape. His paintings depicted tranquil, unpopulated scenes that emphasized the technical mastery of traditional landscape painting methods.

Very minor crease to lower left corner, slight waviness to sheet, as to be expected with mounting technique, not examined outside the frame.