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| Olivia with Julie Strain |
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Olivia De Berardinis was born in California in
1948 but spent most of her childhood on the East Coast. Her father,
Sante De Berardinis, was a freelance aeronautical engineer, and his
work kept Olivia's family constantly on the move. Being the only
child, Olivia lived in an adult world where she spent much of her
time drawing. Olivia's playful, flirtatious mother, Connie, served
as her favourite model and muse. In 1967 she attended the New York
School of Visual Arts. Over the next few years she took odd jobs to
pay the rent but continued to paint and began to show her work,
primarily minimalist oils on canvas. By 1974 financial pressures
induced Olivia to seek out commercial art work, and so she returned
to the skills she had gained as a child, painting beautiful women
for periodicals and paperback publishers. In a short time Olivia
secured regular work painting erotic fantasies for men's
magazines.
In 1975 Olivia met Joel Beren and they were
married four years later. Living on Manhattan's Upper West Side they
developed a small publishing business, O Cards, primarily printing
Olivia's work as greeting cards. They created another company, Ozone
Productions, Ltd. to license Olivia's artwork. In 1984 Olivia met
Robert and Tamara Bane and signed her first fine art publishing
agreement with Robert Bane Publishing. Over 200 limited editions
have since been published. In 1987 the Tamara Bane Gallery in Los
Angeles opened its doors with a gala one-woman show of Olivia's
artwork. Later that year Olivia and Joel moved to Los Angeles where
they reside today.
Olivia has had shows throughout the United States
and Japan and her work is collected by fans worldwide. Robert Bane
Editions remains the exclusive publisher and representative of all
of Olivia's original paintings, drawings, studies, gouaches, signed
and numbered limited editions, and posters, while eOlivia is the
online outlet for books, catalogues, greeting cards, postcards, and
collectables featuring Olivia's art.
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