Born in 1900 in Ostre Aker, Norway, Bernhard Berntsen came to America
when he was 19, settling in New York. Soon he was building skyscrapers,
threading across open I-beams hundreds of feet in the air; at the same
time the open steel and the men who worked there became the subjects of
his oils, pastels and charcoals. Over the decades following Berntsen
worked with artistic luminaries including Deigo Rivera, Suzuki and J. S.
Curry and extended his vision beyond high-steel to rural landscapes of
New York state, Pennsylvania and the horse country of Virginia where he
spent his last years. Today his work hangs from the Royal Palace in
Norway to the Vesterheim, the Iron Workers headquarters in Washington,
D.C. to galleries in Brooklyn and scores of private collections. Imagine
a man 50 stories above the city streets, perched on scaffolding, dressed
in overalls and a hardhat, with a paintbrush in his hand. He is not
painting the walls of a newly built skyscraper; he is painting a canvas
with his interpretation of the city before him. It could be lunch time
or late in the afternoon, when most of the crew has left the structure
forming beneath them, but whatever time of day, the task is the same:
capture as much of the feel and the sights of the high steel as possible
before the sun bids adieu to the grand structure that consumes his day.
The man I describe is Bernhard Berntsen and the work he is involved with
is the building of some of our great American cities. All the while he
captures the sights of his job with oil paints and grease pencil
drawings. Early in his painting career, Berntsen painted scenes mostly
from the construction sites (Steel Girders) where he worked and from the
daily life around him. Several decades after he began painting, his eye
turned to the equestrian world. (Steeplechases) There are those who will
be remembered for their contributions to science and progress, those who
captured a moment in time or an idea through the arts, and those who
made a lasting impression on our spirits as humanitarians. Bernhard
Berntsen will be remembered for all of these things. Whether he was
helping to build one of the great skyscrapers of New York City or
putting the final touches on an oil painting on a Saturday afternoon,
Berntsen was making impressions that last to this day. He was also
making lasting impressions on the people he met along the way. He had a
love of life and a love of people that spanned most of the 20th Century.
