John Berger 1926-2017

John Berger 1926-2017

Twenty years ago I spent one of the most memorable days of my life in the company of John Berger. On a trip to visit my dear friend in Paris, filmmaker Rodrigo Dorfman, we decided to meet Mr. Berger, and tramped off to find him. Some hours later we were warmly ushered in to his cozy house in the Paris suburbs. As a university student we read and studied his seminal work, Ways of Seeing. As a relatively newly-minted art dealer, to meet the author sent me over the moon. We did not talk about art history for long, however.  The extraordinarily kind John Berger wanted to know all about my friend and me, and after some number of bottles of wine I opened up with a torrent of tears about the death of my mother. Hours later Rodrigo and I poured ourselves onto the street wide-eyed and ready to devour the world. For me as a young man at the beginning of his life’s work, to meet Mr. Berger, the man, sent me to the stars.