Virginia Berresford (1902-1996)

“Though quite aware of the tendencies of contemporary painting, Miss Berresford has remained singularly uninfluenced by any one school or master. Her talent, a wholly original and personal one, in a curious way combines, on the one hand, philosophic detachment and intellectual analysis, with a rich and sensuous romanticism on the other. It is this dual quality in her nature as a painter, this ability to transmute sensation into thought, that imparts to her canvases their feeling of mastery and disturbing strangeness. Her prime interest would seem to lie in conceiving richly colored and almost exotic forms, and then presenting them to us with a dignified and dispassionate restraint.

-Frank Crowninshield, 1933

Though born in New Rochelle, New York, Virginia Berresford spent the majority of her career as a Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts painter and gallery owner, working in a style both similar to and distinct from that of Georgia O’Keefe and the American Modernists. During her career, Berresford exhibited at prestigious venues including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Today, her work can be found in many private and public collections, such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts. 

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