David Bierk (9 June 1944, Appleton, Minnesota – August 28, 2002), was an American-born Canadian painter. His work is exhibited at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York City. According to Askart.com ([1][2]), Bierk was primarily active in California and Canada, and he was best known for producing landscape paintings, as well as paintings incorporating "Old Master appropriations". Bierk evidently became a Canadian citizen, for Artcyclopedia.com calls him an "American-born Canadian Painter".[3] According to artnet.com, Bierk became a Canadian citizen in 1978.[4] Under the heading of "Paintings in Museums and Public Art Galleries" for this artist, Artcyclopedia lists the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia; the Art Gallery of Peterborough, Ontario; and the Ellen Gallery at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec.
Among David Bierk's children are actress Dylan Bierk, professional hockey goal tender Zac Bierk, Toronto-based photographer Jeff Bierk, Toronto-based painters Alex Bierk, Nick Bierk and Charles Bierk and former lead singer of Skid Row Sebastian Bach. His most widely recognizable work is the 1991 album cover of Skid Row's Slave to the Grind.
Critical appraisal: "virtuoso" post-modernist
In a June 2001 Art in America review, critic Jonathan Goodman writes that "Bierk quotes from the past not so much to critique current art as to reinterpret a way of seeing that he associates with artists as disparate as Vermeer, Eakins, Ingres, Manet and Fantin-Latour", and that Bierk "accomplishes this particularly well when he starkly juxtaposes two or three of his eclectic art-historical references within a single work." Noting the work's "virtuoso" technical quality, Goodman also observes that Bierk's "marvelously romantic" landscape paintings are, unlike these referential paintings, invented images, rather than appropriated or copied from masterworks.[5] Both Goodman's review and Bierk's 2002 New York Times obituary note that Bierk used framing to call attention, in a way that is pointedly "postmodern", to the historical disjunction between the evoked masterworks and the contemporary cultural environment: "He painted copies of works by artists like Vermeer or the Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church, for example, and framed them within broad steel panels, setting up a tension between humanism and old masterly craft on the one hand, and Modernist abstraction and industrial fabrication on the other." [6] Thus, the manner in which the painting is framed is often intrinsic to the work itself.
Education
M.F.A. Humboldt State University, Arcata, California
B.A. Humboldt State University, Arcata, California
California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California
Art shows and museums
David Bierk's work has been widely shown throughout the United States and Canada at public institutions including:
The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Binghamton University Art Museum, Binghamton, New York
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Ontario
Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio
Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, Indiana
Flint Institute of the Arts, Flint, Michigan
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York
Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada
London Regional Art and Historical Museum, London, Ontario
University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York
MoMA extension at Pfizer, New York City
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama
New York Academy of Sciences, New York City
Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, Ontario
Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia
Many corporate and private venues
Bierk art collections
David Bierk's works are found in many public collections, including:
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Vancouver, British Columbia
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario
Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, Ontario
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario
Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario
Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Ontario
Canadian Postal Museum, Ottawa, Ontario
The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio
Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, Indiana
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
City of Peterborough, Ontario
Tom Thomson Art Gallery Owen Sound, Ontario
Many corporate and private collections
Awards
Bierk was named Artist-in-Residence by the Canada Council, St. Catharines, and the Canada Council, North Bay, Ontario. He received three grant awards from the Canada Council.
Bierk gained many awards for his work throughout his life including:
Music Awards
1991 Best Album Cover of the Year, RAW Magazine
1981 Canada Council Artist-in-Residence, St. Catharines, Ontario
1980-81 Ontario Association of Art Galleries Poster Design, First Prize
1980 Ontario Association of Art Galleries Catalogue Design, First Prize
1979-80 Ontario Association of Art Galleries, Best Overall Gallery Image, First Prize
1979 Ontario Association of Art Galleries, Newsletter Design, First Prize
Canada Council Artist-in-Residence, North Bay, Ontario
1978 Canada Council Short Term Grant
1974, 1986, 1987 Canada Council Project Grant
1975, 1983, 1985 Canada Council "B" Grant
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts[7]
Art commissions
Bierk was commissioned by many organizations including:
Atlantic Records, New York City (album cover and design)
Billingsley Company, Dallas, Texas
Canada Post Corporation, Ottawa, Ontario (postage stamp design of Robert W. Service commemorative stamp in 1976)
Canadore College, North Bay, Ontario
Delta Vancouver Suites Hotel, Vancouver, British Columbia
Gardner Carton & Douglas, Inc., Chicago, Illinois
I.O.D.E., Peterborough, Ontario
Intrawest Corporation, Vancouver, British Columbia
Music Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
NTT, Tokyo, Japan
Government of Ontario, Ministry of Health, Kingston, Ontario
Government of Ontario, Ministry of Revenue, Ottawa, Ontario
Princess Hotels Ltd., Scottsdale, Arizona
Ramada Renaissance Hotel, Los Angeles, California
RJR Nabisco, New York City
Saks Fifth Avenue, Charleston, South Carolina
Sheraton Grande Hotel, Los Angeles, California
Sir Sandford Fleming College, Peterborough, Ontario
Star Canyon Restaurant, Dallas, Texas
Stitzel Company, San Francisco, California
Trinity College School, Port Hope, Ontario
U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C.
USA Group, Indianapolis, Indiana
Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C.
Wedgewood Hotel, Vancouver, British Columbia
Windsor Arms Hotel, Toronto, Ontario
Wood Gundy at Park Place, Vancouver, British Columbia
Death
David Bierk died in Peterborough, Ontario in August 2002, aged 57, from bone marrow cancer and leukemia.
References
"David Bierk - Artist, Art - David Bierk". Askart.com. 2008-05-26. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
"David Bierk - Keywords David Bierk". Askart.com. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
"David Bierk Online". Artcyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
"David Bierk on artnet". Artnet.com. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
[1][dead link]
"David Bierk, 58, Canadian Artist Who Reinterpreted Masterworks - New York Times". Nytimes.com. 2002-09-07. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
"Members since 1880". Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
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