Death of revolutionary critic John Berger, who inspired a new way of seeing art
London — Influential British art critic and prize-winning author John Berger, a revolutionary who backed the far-left Black Panthers, has died aged 90. Berger was best known for his art criticism essay Ways of Seeing, written to accompany a BBC television series, credited with changing the way people viewed art. He also won the 1972 Booker Prize for Fiction for his experimental novel G., set in Europe before the First World War. Berger died on Monday in the Paris suburb of Antony, his son Jacob said on Tuesday. "He died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family." He had lived in France since the 1970s. Berger was born in London in 1926. After serving in the British army, he enrolled at the Chelsea School of Art, becoming a painter. He taught drawing from 1948 to 1955, becoming a noted art critic from 1952, according to his French publishers, Les Editions de l’Olivier. He wrote about artists including Pablo Picasso, Titian, Paul Cezanne and Gustave Courbet. Ways of Seeing was an i...
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