ABOVE Constructions by Sea
Sven Berlin
The son of a Swedish timber merchant from South East London, Sven Berlin never went to art college. Sven Berlin was one of the last surviving members of the “St. Ives School”, whose chief protagonists were Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo but his work avoided the academicism of both modern and traditional practice. Visually, the strength of his work was based on confident, bold outlines, and went hand in hand with his work as a book illustrator to enable him to carve an authentic niche as one of the finest romantic draughtsmen of the period.
He died in 1999.