Biography
Summary
Berenice Sydney (1944–1983), born Berenice Frieze, and professionally known as 'Berenice', was a British artist who produced a substantial body of work from 1964 until her death in 1983. Her oeuvre consists of paintings on canvas, works on paper, prints, children's books, costume design, and performance.
Berenice was born in Esher, Surrey in 1944 and educated from the age of six at the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London. From her early years, she studied ballet with Marie Rambert and classical guitar with Adele Kramer.
As an adult, she balanced a busy work schedule in her studio by training at the Dance Centre in Covent Garden and attending flamenco dance studios in Hampstead and New York City.
She participated in over 40 exhibitions before her death of an asthma attack at the age of 39. She is buried in the eastern section of Highgate Cemetery. Her father, the documentary filmmaker Joseph Sydney Frieze, died a few months later and is buried with her. Lord McAlpine gave the eulogy at her funeral which was also attended by Dr. David Brown then the Assistant Keeper in Modern Collections at the Tate Gallery.
Career
Berenice Sydney was included in ten group exhibitions between 1963 and 1975 and held eleven solo shows, in addition to being invited to represent Britain at the Biennale della Grafica d'Arte in Florence in 1974. The following year she showed her "stained-glass effect" canvases at the McAlpine Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum.
Her first professional exhibition was held at the Drian Galleries in 1968 and included Susanna and the Elders with Charlie the Pigeon, Coffee Pot and 3 Yellow Flowers and The Drummer Boy.
She began to exhibit her works on paper including Dancing Nymphs, Hermaphroditus, Pan and Two Nymphs, The Marriage of Psyche and Eros, Naiads Surprised by Satyrs, in 1968. Linocuts were also exhibited that year and included Aphrodite and Ares, Nymphs Dancing, Psyche and Eros, Nude Fiddling with Toe, Pan and Two Nymphs and Hebe and Artemis. She continued to explore themes relating to Persian mythology, Christian symbolism and Greek mythological subjects as well as referencing Ancient Egyptian art, creating a hieroglyph of her professional name and working on papyrus.
Children's books
Sydney wrote and illustrated a Book of Nonsense Verse 1982/3 later titled Book of Fools which she dedicated to the First of April. A page from this work featuring the poem The Ant who Danced and Pranced is featured in the catalogue to the exhibition Homage to Berenice Sydney. In it the art historian, Florian Rodari's appraisal of Sydney's work appears in French with a translation in English by Charlotte Frieze.
The black and white illustrations to the Book of Fools are aquatints etched in a delicately delineated style. The text is written in French and English. Four artist's proofs of the book subsequently titled Book of Fools were printed. The French version of A Book of Fools was purchased by the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris in October 1982 in addition to a number of the artist's earliest etchings, now kept in the Cabinet des Estampes.
An audio cassette recording of the artist giving a reading of the Book of Fools was made at the Musée d'Elysée in Lausanne as the artist performed with castanets, accompanied by Gypsy Flamenco musicians and rendered in parts with a Yorkshire accent in homage to her father's family origins.