Ode to Else Berg | Art was your life and you live on through your art

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Far from Amsterdam you were born. In Ratibor (Silesia) you saw the light of day on February 19, 1877. You grew up as one of the youngest in a well-to-do liberal Jewish family with several brothers and sisters. At a time when many academies in your country were not yet open to women and girls, you took the opportunity to study art in Berlin. It was the beginning of many wonderful things.

Not much is known about the first half of your life. Only after you went with Samuel Schwarz who was mostly called “Mommie” to Paris where you had plenty of exposure to modern art do you come more into the picture. Your eldest sister was married to his uncle. Was Mommie intended to serve as a chaperone? If so it seems to have failed, for from that trip to Paris you were a couple, or at least inseparable heart friends. Around 1910 you settled in Amsterdam and that was the beginning of your Dutch artist life.

In 1920 your marriage to Mommie was consummated. You were 43 by then. The witnesses were 2 men who were porters by profession. May I infer from this that it was not a big party with family and friends? You married, but kept your independence. Although you did a lot together, Mommie and you also had your own lives and would not live together, although you often stayed in the same building. A kind of LAT relationship avant la lettre. It indicates a special marriage. In 1924, thanks to this marriage, you became naturalized Dutch. What fascinating, mostly powerful, often intriguing paintings you made. You had not one style but many different styles that succeeded each other, often inspired by other artists, by new movements in art and by travel. You made many trips, mostly together with your husband Mommie, but also with friends including Tine Baanders. At the invitation of your painter friend Leo Gestel, Mommie and you went to Majorca for several months where you stayed with Leo and his wife An and painted a lot. After that you also visited Spain. Other trips abroad went to your family, the mining area around Liege in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, France and Italy, often several times. You gained much inspiration and new experiences there. The influences can be seen in your paintings.

In addition to paintings, you made sketches, drawings, woodcuts, pastels and watercolors, among other things. You did not limit yourself to one genre, there are (self) portraits, still lifes, village scenes, landscapes, circus, religious pictures and more. You found many subjects interesting and were enormously productive.

In Amsterdam you had several addresses including studios in 2nd Jan Steenstraat in the famous Jan Steenzolder, on Albert Cuypstraat and on Sarphatipark at no. 42, the latter two in premises where Piet Mondrian had previously had his studio. At the latter address, Mommie also had a floor with studio apartment. You also painted during your travels abroad and in Limburg, Bergen and Schoorl where you stayed for quite some time.

Your work was considered to belong to the avant-garde and also to the Bergen School. You became friends with the artist Charley Toorop. Your work was sometimes compared to each other. Art collector and patron Piet Boendermaker bought drawings and paintings from you. But you did not sell enough to live on and travel, so you regularly appealed to your family to send money, an allowance from your inheritance.

In both Bergen and Amsterdam art circles, you were a welcome guest and had many contacts. In Amsterdam, artists of various persuasions first gathered at Leo Gestel's Jan Steenzolder, his studio that became an unofficial artists' society, where people painted, drank, smoked, discussed and partied. Mommie and you each had studios there, too. Then Het Honk became the popular hangout for artists, and in later years De Kring, a society near Leidseplein that still exists, came into being.

Your circle of friends, in addition to those already mentioned, included, among others, painter Wim Schuhmacher and his wife Doortje Parrée, architect Piet Kramer and dancer Gertrud Leistikow. The first time I learned of your existence was through a cheerful group photo on Gertrud's wedding day taken at her cottage on Oosteinderweg in Aalsmeer.

You were a member of several artists' associations. There were De Onafhankelijken, De Moderne Kunstkring and the Hollandsche Kunstenaarskring, which was known as very modern, especially at the beginning. At the Hollandsche Kunstenaarskring you were for quite some time the only woman among all the men and you were even vice-president and president. It shows how highly you and your art were regarded by the other great modern artists of the time.

Your works could be admired at numerous group exhibitions at home and abroad, including regularly at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and in London, Brussels, Paris, Belgrade, Toronto and New York. There were also solo exhibitions in various cities. You celebrated life and enjoyed traveling, being inspired, concentrated work, art and artist life, close girlfriends and friends and many parties. Although there were times in your later life when you had problems with your health. Then came World War II and everything changed. I understand that like many others you refused to wear a Jewish star. You actually never identified as Jewish in the decades before that in the Netherlands. More and more rules and restrictions were promulgated to isolate Jews and make life impossible. 

Then came the raids. Why hadn't you gone abroad, to America, or to England? Mommie had lived and worked in New York temporarily, but two of his brothers had stayed there and become naturalized Americans. I'm sure they would have wanted to help you. Your relatives who had fled to England urged you to come too. Why didn't you follow the advice of friends and relatives? Did you think it would not be so bad? Or did you want to leave but couldn't get visas? It is also possible that you were too late and closed borders prevented you from leaving. In 1941 you participated for the last time in an exhibition of the Hollandsche Kunstenaarskring. In that year you probably stayed in Baambrugge with your friend Tine Baanders. Reports that you went into hiding there or that you never went into hiding contradict each other. In any case, you did not stay there in the end. Did you have to leave because it was no longer safe? Was there a fear of betrayal? Or did you leave for some other reason? No one can tell us now. Whatever the reason was you returned to your studio apartment at the Sarphatipark in Amsterdam. If only you hadn't done that, it turned out it wasn't safe there.

“Winter View of Sarphatipark from Studio” is said to be your last painting. It is a landscape with snow, people in the park and a blue car or bus parked in front of the park. The months of January and February of 1942 were terribly cold with lots of frost days and lots of snow. Even in March there was still quite a bit of snow; it wasn't until the middle of that month that the thaw set in. Possibly you painted it in one of these months. It was one of only six paintings saved from your studio apartment, after your involuntary departure.

On November 12, 1942, Mommie and you were rounded up at home and sent to Westerbork via the Hollandse Schouwburg. Just 4 days later, the train left for your final journey. Ironically, your life ended in the same region where your life had begun. Like Mommie, you were murdered in Auschwitz (Silesia) on November 19, 1942.

What remains is some of your artwork, a sizable cookie tin whose contents provide a glimpse into your life and some stories and photographs that testify to who you were. Else Berg, an energetic, independent, sometimes hard-looking, but cordial, carefully dressed, yet unconventional lady with a strong personality and a versatile, progressive and driven artist whose unfinished life and work were cut short too soon and maliciously. Almost succeeded in erasing your existence, but decades after your death your work was rediscovered and appreciated which led to renewed interest in your paintings and life. There were exhibitions, books and stolpersteine. You were murdered, but that was not the end, your heart and soul remained palpable in your paintings. Art was your life and you live on through your art.