(bapt Wallerstein, Saxony, 10 Dec 1744; d New York, 5 Feb 1813). Canadian painter and architect of German birth. He studied at the Akademie der bildenden K?nste in Vienna in 1762 and subsequently at the University of Jena in Saxony. During the 1770s he lived in several European countries before settling in Florence as a miniature painter at the end of the decade. About 1790 he moved to London where he pursued his career as a painter, exhibiting at the Royal Academy. In 1792 he departed for America with a group of settlers and two years later set up a business in the area of York (now Toronto). In 1798-9 he worked as a portrait painter in Quebec, producing a wide range of pictures from miniatures on ivory to life-size canvases (e.g. Governor Prescott; Quebec, Mus. Semin.). From 1803 he made his living solely from painting, mainly in Montreal and Quebec. Berczy was recognized as one of the best painters in both Upper and Lower Canada. At the same time as he was becoming a popular portrait painter, he devoted time to religious painting and to architectural work, including plans made in 1803 for Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal. Although he mixed styles in his secular and religious paintings he was most strongly influenced by Neo-classicism. Berczy is best known for two exceptional pictures: a dramatic full-length portrait of the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant (c. 1805) and a magnificent group portrait of the Woolsey Family (1809; both Ottawa, N.G.); the latter is among the masterpieces of Canadian painting.

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The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art. Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.