The New York TimesnBy Roberta SmithnJan. 14, 2015nnJake Berthot, a painter who gained notice in New York City for his romantically minimal style, then found inspiration in the natural world after moving north to a hamlet in Ulster County, died on Dec. 30 at his home in Accord, N.Y. He was 75.nnBetty Cuningham, whose gallery represented him, confirmed his death. She said he had long been ill but did not specify a cause.nnMr. Berthot (pronounced BEAR-TOE) had a brief flirtation with Minimal Art in the mid-1960s. But, like many members of his generation, he soon sought ways to soften, complicate and enrich the style’s severity. He was guided in this by his admiration for Abstract Expressionists like Milton Resnick and Mark Rothko, whose work was simplified but emotive.nnHe began to work in subtle monochromes of gray and green in the late 1960s in a manner similar to that of the painter Brice Marden. But Mr. Berthot’s surfaces were differentiated by their expressive texture and their suggestions of space and atmosphere.nnnnnIn many ways, Mr. Berthot spent his career exploring how to supplement and expand on the modernist monochrome without straying too far from it. At first he attached narrow vertical bars to either side of all-gray canvases. He also framed thickly worked monochromes with more thinly painted canvases, creating the effect of a window or of an abstract painting within an abstract painting.nnFor a while he pursued thickly built-up surfaces to which he added ovals or column-like rectangles in contrasting, sometimes even bright, colors. Most of his paintings began with an underlying grid of pencil that his brushwork alternately denied and confirmed. After 1996, when Mr. Berthot left Manhattan for Accord, the natural world became an increasing influence. He turned to depicting trees and hills so close in tone to their backgrounds that they almost seemed carved from them. Some of his most beautiful paintings were nocturnal landscapes or expanses of night skies illuminated by a few rays from the moon.nnThese works had a timeless quality and reflected his admiration for 19th-century landscape painters like George Inness, Albert Pinkham Ryder and J. M. W. Turner. He once told an interviewer that he was “not interested in the new but in trying to make paintings that refuse to grow old.” His art started rounding back toward abstraction in 2008.nnJohn Alex Berthot was born in Niagara Falls, N.Y., on March 30, 1939. His father abandoned the family when John was quite young, and he grew up on his grandparents’ truck farm in central Pennsylvania. He received his first drawing lessons from his grandmother.nMr. Berthot initially studied at a commercial art school in Pittsburgh but realized that he lacked the necessary precision in drawing. Moving to New York City, he worked as a window dresser in the Bronx. When his wife got a secretarial job at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, he was able to attend classes there tuition free.nnAt Pratt he began to paint seriously and soon had his first experience as a teacher. Starting in 1974, he taught for extended periods at the Cooper Union, Yale University and the School of Visual Arts.nnMr. Berthot had his first gallery show in New York in 1963 and showed regularly at the McKee Gallery and then the Betty Cuningham Gallery, both in Manhattan. Surveys of his work were held at Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., in 1988 and at the Phillips Collection in Washington in 1996.nnWhen he decided to bequeath the paintings in his studio to the Phillips, the museum offered to exhibit them, as a gift, during his lifetime. Mr. Berthot, who once described painting as “the only thing I can do,” declined, saying that he needed the paintings around him.nnHis marriages to Ginny MacKenzie and Kristin Flynn both ended in divorce. He is survived by his son, John, from his first marriage.nnA version of this article appears in print on Jan. 19, 2015, on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Jake Berthot, 75, Abstract Painter Inspired by Nature. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe]]> Many years ago Dixie Sheridan gave me 5 Madame Alexander dolls in their original boxes. About 5 months ago she called and asked if she could have them back. A friend of hers collects them and she wants to give them to her. I said OK, though I thought it unusual for her to ask for them back to give to someone else. She asked if could bring them to NYC at some point. I said I would if I could. Or if I could bring them to Jim Sheridan's house in Poughkeepsie. I got busy and kept forgetting to deal with this. When she heard that a film of mine was being screened in NYC she asked if we could bring them to her friend's house. In the middle of dealing with the screening, I was reluctant to do this so said no, it would be too difficult. She emailed me the other day, seeming disturbed that so much time had gone by. I told her I was very busy and kept losing track of this. On Saturday evening (I saw the Email on Sunday morning) she Emailed to ask if Jim could come by at 8:30 am on Sunday. It was 8:30 when I emailed her back. We had arranged for him to come here a bit later. So he did.]]> In the Afternoon, after Catherine finished doing graduate critiques, Arielle dropped us off at the museum for a walkthrough with Jennifer. See the following entry.]]> Gina introduced us to one of her favorite students (works at the museum). See the previous entry.]]> 1974-07-24, Wednesday, Janet Soderberg, Helen Matlin, Dan Nelkin. They are doing an article on cathy (Catherine Murphy) for Art & Man, a magazine for High School Students. Dan is the photgrapher. Cathy recognized him from pratt.]]> Janice (LaMotta) is the director of the Woodstock Artist Association and Museum. John Yau is curating a show for them called "The Book". He invited Catherine Murphy and myself to be in the show. So Janice agreed to pick up the work at our house. I arranged for Margaret at Catskill Art and Office to mat Cathy's two prints for the show. I was supposed to pick them up this past Saturday, but in rushing around and going to the Garrison Art Center to see Laura Kaufman's show, and then meeting Karen Wilkin and Don Clinton for dinner, I forgot to pick up Cathy's prints. Catskill Art and Office is closed on Sundays, so I panicked that Janice would end up coming all the way here and we wouldn't have Cathy's work to give her. I called Catskill Art and Office in Woodstock, which is open on Sunday, and they agreed to forward my contact information to Margaret and Lee, and ask them to get in touch with them. Margaret did call me back, and luckily she agreed to meet me so I could pick up the work. Janice got here around 1:30. We had coffee and lemon squares that Cathy had made for Josh Marsh's lunch. We had a rather nice visit.]]> 2000-01-01 with Olivier Michailoff]]> 1978-01-01 #01]]> January 1, 1978 #1 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #10]]> January 1, 1978 #10 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #11]]> January 1, 1978 #11 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #12]]> January 1, 1978 #12 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #14]]> January 1, 1978 #14 (roll date)]]> January-1-1978-2]]> 1978-01-01 #03]]> January 1, 1978 #3 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #04]]> January 1, 1978 #4 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #05]]> January 1, 1978 #5 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #06]]> January 1, 1978 #6 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #07]]> January 1, 1978 #7 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #08]]> January 1, 1978 #8 (roll date)]]> 1978-01-01 #09]]> January 1, 1978 #9 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #01 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #10 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01, 1980 #11 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #12 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #13 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #14 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #15 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #16 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #17 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #18 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #19 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #02 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #021 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #022 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #023 (roll date)]]> 1980-01-01 #024 (roll date)]]>