Jerry Berndt, born in 1943 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, worked as a photographer for over forty years, employed by newspapers and magazines including the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Newsweek and Paris Match. His work as a photojournalist took him to numerous conflict areas such as San Salvador (1984), Haiti (1986-91), Armenia (1993-94) and Rwanda (2003-04). Berndt taught at Boston University's College of Fine Art and at the University of Massachusetts, and his work is held by prominent institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. In 2008, Berndt was honored by a retrospective in Braunschweig and Berlin, for which Steidl published Insight. Berndt died in Paris in 2013.
Frustrated by how little she could discover about her Aunt Constance, Green, a visual artist, has confected a life for her in a pastiche of a mid-century family scrapbook.-- New Yorker The gritty portraits of Beautiful America sum up the irony of this country's origin spotlighting the thick layer of dirt covering America's infamous reputation; an empire built on stolen land, the labor of enslaved Black people, and the abuse of white privilege for unruly power.--Peter Kougias Musee A gorgeous book that's hard to explain but is highly worth reading from an author who doesn't get nearly enough attention for her brilliance.--Roxane Gay