Ferenc Berko

Just as the Cubists set about reducing the world to its constituent geometric shapes, Berko used his camera to uncover, as he put it, “the shape…the pattern, the form” that lay behind what the rest of us perceive as a muddled and complex reality. 

Displaced by the war in the thirties, Berko travelled to London, Barcelona, and Paris (where his work showed the influence of Henri Cartier-Bresson) and also to India, where some of the best pictures in this show were taken. His most distinctive images capture no place at all: they’re studies in texture, pattern, and form.

The 33 black and white prints at Gitterman illustrate Berko’s commitment to the Bauhaus ideals of modernism and exploration.

Berko synthesized many influences in his work--Bauhaus, surrealism, eroticism, social humanism--but put his own imprint on everything he photographed.
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Berko (19916-2000), born in Hungary, was brought up in Germany, and spent many years shuttling between Europe, India, and America before settling in Aspen.
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Unifying all his photos is his infinite care with every last detail of the composition. There is not a false note here. Only harmony.
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