We are very proud to announce that Olivia is this years Dragon*Con Art
Show Artist Guest of Honor. Olivia's presense along with all of the
other wonderful art show events will easily make this the best
Dragon*Con Art Show ever!
Olivia's Bio
Throughout history, artists have painted and memorialized the female
body in many unique and beautiful ways. Pinups have been an integral
part of American culture. Olivia is an American pop culture icon. She
has carved a permanent and highly respected position in the art world
amongst her collectors.
Olivia represents a new generation of artists who are confident, bold,
energetic and uncompromising. Her dedication to her work, her sense of
visual beauty and remarkable technique evoke an unbounded imagination
enriched with carefully selected colors and patterns and imagery. Each
painting is unique, always provocative and emotionally stimulating,
from classical cheesecake to 21st century females, from fetish to
fantasy images.
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 favorite 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 *****c 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
publi****ng 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 publi****ng agreement with Robert Bane Publi****ng. 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, catalogs, greeting cards, postcards, and
collectibles featuring Olivia's art.
(Bio from the Dragon*Con web site www.dragoncon.org and her web site
at http://www.eolivia.com
)
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