The Painters: Robert Berlind and Harriet Shorr
Both scholarship funds were established by Corina Larkin ’06, a painter and former Executive Director of the CUE Art Foundation, which has a gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
“I feel lucky to have had both of these people in my life,” says Larkin, who came to Purchase to study painting in her late 30s. “Both were very dedicated educators. I’d like people to know about them and remember them.”
The Robert Berlind Memorial Endowed Scholarship supports a graduate student with financial need, preferably for a student pursuing painting, while the Harriett Shorr Memorial Endowed Scholarship supports an undergraduate student, particularly one who has been underrepresented in the past.
Professor Emeritus of Art+Design Robert Berlind was a prolific painter, known for capturing the beauty in natural landscapes through observation. He was also an art critic who regularly contributed to Art in America—nearly 100 reviews—as well as to the Brooklyn Rail.
Berlind, who headed up the College’s graduate program, would often take students en plein air to paint. At Rye Beach, for example, students could capture its expansive beach, rocks on the shore, and views of the Long Island Sound. He’d also take students on tours of Manhattan galleries, with an essay assigned to each student to report on what they saw.
“Bob was smooth, relaxed, and friendly,” says his wife, Mary Lucier. “He knew painting theory, but he didn’t use theory to analyze painting. He gave preference to looking. And in his graduate seminar, he would walk around and give very succinct criticism.”
Shorr, who was known for her skillful still life and landscape paintings, was an artist involved both in her art and the broader world. Jed Devine, professor emeritus of Art+Design, came to know Shorr quite well as they carpooled daily from Manhattan to the Anderson Hill Road campus to teach.
“Harriet was someone who paid attention to the world,” says Devine. “Her politics were based on her deep humanity and her concern for others.” Shorr was vocal among the Purchase faculty and would speak up against administration policies she opposed. “Harriett was willing to speak truth to power,” he says.
An accomplished writer and poet, Shorr also touched the hearts of students such as Dr. Paula Kurasch ’04 (Visual Arts). Kurasch recalled studio classes where students would be engrossed in their painting assignment as Shorr would read short stories aloud.
“Try to imagine painting, maybe from a still life,” says Kurasch, a dentist by trade who came to Purchase at age 54. “It’s quiet and contemplative as you focus on whatever directions were given. And then there is a voice and a story. You can take it in as content or as a comforting sound. Either way, a safe environment is created. Harriet could bring art and literature together as she was rich in both.”
Berlind earned a BA in Art History from Columbia College, then a BFA and MFA from Yale. He won the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Painting and the B. Altman Award in Painting at the National Academy. In 2013, he received an Arts Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation in association with Creative Capital.
Before earning a BFA from Yale, Shorr earned a BA at Swarthmore College. She was a member of the National Academy of Design and winner of its Emil and Dines Carlsen Award in Painting, and received a MacDowell Fellowship.
Both artists earned grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
Written by David McKay Wilson