Wallace Berman (born Staten Island, 1926) refined his artistic vision in California from the 1950s-70s, living in San Francisco then Los Angeles, cultivating a like-minded community and eschewing academic constraints. His critical involvement with the Beat generation and contribution to the art and culture of that region was both influential and also largely forgotten by the mainstream art-consuming public. His mail art folio Semina was self-published from 1955-64, and has become an iconic chronicle of emerging thinkers and writers from this era. A complete catalogue of Semina editions are now included in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

In 2016, Kohn Gallery, in Los Angeles, staged Wallace Berman: American Aleph, the first comprehensive retrospective of the artist in nearly 40 years. Solo exhibitions have also taken place at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1978), and the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2007). Today, his works are held in collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among many others. Berman died in a car accident on his 50th birthday on February 18, 1976 in Topanga Canyon, CA.  

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021

TOTAH, New York, NY, Off the Grid

 

2016

Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, American Aleph (catalogue)

 

2010
Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris, France, Wallace Berman: Be-bop Kabbalah (catalogue)

Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland, Wallace Berman

2009
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, NY, Wallace Berman, 1926 – 1976 (catalogue)

2008
Camden Arts Centre, London, UK, Wallace Berman

2006
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive BAM/PFA, Berkeley, CA, Semina Culture (catalogue)

2005
The Jewish Museum of New York, New York, NY, Aleph - A Film by Wallace Berman

2000

Mamco - musée d´art moderne et contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland, Wallace Berman - Art Is Love Is God - une introduction - 1957-1976

 

1992

ICA/Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Support the Revolution: Wallace Berman (catalogue)

1990

Louver Gallery, New York, NY, A Gesture Involving Verifax Collage, Photographs, Text and Sculpture: Wallace Berman

1988

LA Louver, Venice, CA, Works from the Estate

1982

Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY

1979
LA Louver, Venice, CA, Work by Wallace Berman: Art is Love is God

LA Louver, Venice, CA, Wallace Berman

1978
Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles (traveled to Fort Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX; University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA) (catalogue)

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1977
Timothea Stewart Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1974

Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, CA

 

1973
The Mermaid Tavern (one day), Topanga, CA

 

1968

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (catalogue)

Jewish Museum, New York, NY (catalogue)

 

1967

Topanga Community House (one day), Topanga, CA

 

1965

Studio Exhibition, Beverly Glen, CA

 

1957

Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024

TOTAH, New York, NY, Clockwise

2017

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Delirious: Art at the Limits of Reason 1950 - 1980 (catalogue)

Simon Lee, London, UK, Screen Memory

 

2016
The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; Nicole Klagsburn, New York, NY, Holy Barbarians: Beat Culture on the West Coast

Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, Duchamp to Pop

 

2015

Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, The West Coast Avant-Garde: 1950 - Present

 

2014

Eldridge Street Synagogue, New York, NY, Walls and Words, organized by UNTITLED Gallery

 

2013

Traveling exhibition beginning at the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan and Their Circle, curated by Michael Duncan (catalogue)

 

2012

Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, INTO THE MYSTIC

The Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena, CA (January – April 2012), LA RAW: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles 1945-1980: From Rico Lebrun to Paul McCarthy, curated by Michael Duncan (catalogue)

Traveling exhibition beginning at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA; Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany, Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980

 

2011

The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA, Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980

Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, All of the Above: Carte Blanche a John M Armleder

The Armory Center, Pasadena, CA (October 1, 2011 – January 22, 2012) 25th Anniversary Show, Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Speaking in Tongues: The Art of Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken, curated by Claudia Bohn-Spector and Sam Mellon (catalogue)

 

2009

Foundation 20 21/Nyehaus, New York, NY, California Maximalism

Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, She: Images of Women by Wallace Berman and Richard Prince (catalogue)

 

2008

Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, Time & Place: Los Angeles 1957-1968

Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany Looking for Mushrooms

Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, Trace du Sacre

 

2007

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA, Pioneers

Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, NY, Semina Culture

 

2006

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA, Radical Software - Art, Technology, and the Bay Area Underground

Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS, Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle

Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA,  California Modern

 

2005

Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York City, NY, Looking at Words

Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, Semina Culture - Wallace Berman & His Circle

Patricia Faure Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, Tony DeLap & Wallace Berman

 

2004

Bronx Museum of the Arts (BxMA), Bronx, NY, Subway Series - The New York Yankees and the American Dream

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY, Evidence of Impact: Art and Photography 1963–1978

Bloomberg Space, London, UK, Collage

 

2003

Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL, Some Assembly Required - Collage Culture in Post-War America

 

2002

Gagosian Gallery - 24th Street, New York, NY, Ferus

 

2000

Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, S.O.S.: Scenes of Sounds

 

1999

Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York City, NY, Group Show

 

1998

Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, World Artists for Tibet

 

1997

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, Denmark, Sunshine and Noir: Art in Los Angeles 1960 - 1997

 

1992

LA Louver, Venice, CA, Poem Makers: Wallace Berman, George Herms, Jess

Louver Gallery, New York, NY, Overlay

 

1991

Louver Gallery, New York, NY, Summer: Scale

Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, NY, Wallace Berman, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, George Herms and Jess

 

1990

LA Louver, Venice, CA, Contemporary Assemblage: The DADA and Surrealist Legacy

Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, Words as Image: American Art 1960-90

 

1989

California State University Hayward, CA, (traveled to Richard Reynolds Gallery, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA), Collage/Assemblage: Nine Points of View

Whitney Museum of American Art at Equitable Center, New York, NY, The Junk Aesthetic: Assemblage of the 1950s and early 1960s

Wight Art Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (traveled to Fresno Art Museum & Art Center, Fresno, CA; University of Houston, Blaffer Gallery, Houston, TX; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE), Forty Years of California Assemblage (catalogue)

Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA (traveled to Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA; Wadsworth Atheneum, Wadsworth, CT; Newberger Museum, Purchase, NY; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ), LA Pop in the Sixties

 

1988

Herron Gallery, Indianapolis, IL, The Art of George Herms and Wallace Berman

James Corcoran Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, and G. Ray Hawkins, Los Angeles, CA, Lost and Found in California: Four Decades of Assemblage Art (catalogue)

Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., Different Drummers (catalogue)

San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX (traveled to Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID; Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX; Amarillo Art Center, Amarillo, TX), Poetic Objects

 

1987

Kent Fine Art, Inc, New York, NY, Assemblage (catalogue)

 

1986

LA Louver, Venice, CA, American/European Painting and Sculpture 1986: Part 1

 

1985

Belmont, CA, Past Presence/Contemporary Sources, College of Notre Dame 

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, Twentieth Century: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

1983

Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, Sight/Vision/The Urban Milieu

 

1982

Santa Monica College Art Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, The Peace Show

Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, The Americans: The Collage

 

1981

LA Louver, Venice, CA, Group Show: California: A Sense of Individualism: Part 1 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, LA (traveled to San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX), Art in Los Angeles: Seventeen Artists in the Sixties

Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna, CA, Southern California Artists: 1940 – 1980

 

1980

LA Louver, Venice, CA, Group Show: Summer Exhibition Part 1

 

1979

International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, New York, NY, Electroworks

 

1977

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, (traveled to Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C), California Painting and Sculpture: The Modern Era

 

1976

Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA, The Last Time I Saw Ferus

 

1975

Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, Collage and Assemblage

University of California, Davis, CA, Environment and the New Art 1960 – 1975

Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, Art as a Muscular Principle

1974

Exhibition traveled to Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX; San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, Poets of the Cities: New York and San Francisco 1950-1965

 

1969

Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA (traveled to City Art Museum of St. Louis, St. Louis, MO; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; Fort Worth Art Center Museum, Fort Worth, TX), West Coast 1945-1969

Hayward Gallery, London, UK, Pop Art Redefined

 

1968

University of California, Irvine, CA, Assemblage in California (catalogue)

 

1966

Robert Fraser Gallery, London, UK, Los Angeles Now (catalogue)

PUBLICATIONS

2016

Tosh Berman et. al, American Aleph, Michael Kohn Gallery, 26 July 2016.

2015

Michael Duncan, Kristine McKenna, Stephen Fredman, Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle, D.A.P./Santa Monica Museum of Art, 24 February 2015.

2014

Johan Kugelberg, Wallace Berman, Semina 1955 - 1964: Art is Love is God, Boo Hooray, 31 March 2014.

1993

Tosh Berman, Wallace Berman: Support the Revolution, Institute of Contemporary Art, 1 April 1993.

1964

Semina 9, Self-Published

1963

Semina 8, Self-Published

1961

Semina 7, Self-Published

1960

Semina VI, Self-Published

1959

Semina 5, Self-Published

Semina 4, Self-Published

1958

Semina 3, Self-Published

1957

Semina Two, Self-Published

1955

Semina 1, Self-Published

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Berardo Museum, Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal

Musée d´art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva, Switzerland

Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur , Switzerland

Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, East Logan, UT

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA

The Jewish Museum, New York, NY

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA

Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco, CA

The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

FILM SCREENINGS

TOTAH, New York, NY, Aleph Screening Event with Andrew Lampert and Tosh Berman, moderated by Anne Waldman