William D. Berry

William Berry (1926-)
"Jim Pray"
Watercolor, 1971.
LFAC #691

Fine Arts Collection William Berry works: 1 |

Biography

William D. Berry was born on May 20, 1926, in San Mateo, CA. During World War II, he served in the army, working for part of the time as a cartoonist for “Stars and Stripes.” After the war, he attended the School of Allied Arts in Glendale, CA. He also studied at the Art Center of Los Angeles, Glendale Junior College and the University of Alaska.

Berry worked for several years as a curator at the California Junior Museum in Sacramento. He was especially interested in creating wildlife drawings. He was commissioned to create paintings, illustrations and murals. After visiting Alaska, he and his wife, Elizabeth, became interested in the state and its wildlife. He lived there for several years, returning to California in 1959. He also worked for Disneyland for a period of time. The family returned to Alaska in 1961 living in Denali Lakes and moving to Fairbanks in 1965. Berry taught drawing classes at the Tanana Valley Community College. He was working on a mural for the children’s room in the Noel Wien Public Library in Fairbanks but died in 1979 before it was completed. The mural, An Alaskan Fairytale, was completed by the illustrator Trina Schart Hyman. The children’s room was named the Berry Room in his honor.

Berry wrote several books including children’s books and also illustrated a number of books for other authors. After his death, his wife published a compilation of the Alaskan field sketches he drew between 1954 and 1956.

The eleven drawings by William D. Berry in the Fine Arts Collection were donated to Luther College by his wife in 1985. The gift was facilitated by former Art Department faculty member, Dean Schwarz.

Ref: Berry, William D. Buffalo Land: The Untamed Wilderness of the High Plains Frontier. Sunnyvale, CA: Press North America, 1980; Berry, William D. Deneki; An Alaskan Moose. New York: Macmillan, 1965; Berry, William D. and Elizabeth Berry. Mammals of the San Francisco Bay Region. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959; Berry, Elizabeth. William D. Berry: 1954-1956 Alaskan Field Sketches. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, 1989; Wikipedia, "William D. Berry"; - geocites.com/berry

Updated 04/27/2009