Bernard Greenwald

Bernard Greenwald was born March 15, 1941 in Newark New Jersey, where he lived with his mother Fagel Zlotnick and sister Ellen. He used to joke, while reminding his children of their good fortune, that as a child his family was so poor they couldn’t afford chewing gum and had to use bits of tar from the street. A highlight of his Newark youth took place while employed as an usher at the Paramount Theater where he got to shake the hand of Louis Armstong, a forever idol and favorite musician. Bernard went on to play the cornet.

Bernard received his BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art and his MFA from Yale University School of Art and Architecture, where he also worked in the Yale Art Gallery’s Conservation Department. New Haven provided him not only with life-long friendships but formalized a journey of introspection and observation that informed his 65 plus years of prolific creativity. In 1969 he became Professor of Art at Bard College, where he taught printmaking, drawing, and painting, as well as introductory classes in creative writing and critical thinking until he retired in 2009. Over the years he also taught at Yale, Skidmore College, Swarthmore College, Kansas City Art Institute, Lewis and Clark College, and was an anti-bias facilitator through the Anti-Defamation League’s “A World of Difference” Institute.

Along with his career as a professor and life as an artist, Bernard also loved music, playing the cornet and trumpet since high school, dabbling in jazz and immersing himself in Klezmer, including leading “Klezmer Berl’s Hotsie Totsie Orkester” for the past 15 years. Late in life he took up the tenor banjo.

His 17 years in retirement, while increasingly limited by health issues, provided him with more time and space to do what he did his whole life – observe, reflect, and integrate all aspects of his inner and outer worlds through artmaking. While he was an articulate speaker and an expressive writer (see pieces published in AboutTown) his visual artwork, across a variety of media (printmaking, painting, woodcarving, ceramics, drawing, sculpture), is where he spoke the strongest and the deepest. He was unwaveringly committed to his practice, making art and music daily. He didn’t slow down until the very end.

Bernard passed on March 3rd, with the gracious help of Hospice, at the age of 84, just shy of his 85th birthday. He was making art and music, engaging with his friends and requesting ice cream and chinese take out till the very end. His sense of humor, playfulness, the love he gave freely, shaped all who knew him and will remain with us.

Bernard is survived by his wife of 30 years, Elena Erber; his two sons, Isaiah Greenwald and Benjamin Greenwald, and his daughter Sasha Pearl. These grown children and their families, and especially the grandchildren, Owen, Autumn and Rafael Thomas were the light of his life.