About Thomas Berger

Thomas Berger is a life-long naturalist and artist, expressing his love of nature through sculpture, photography, painting and drawing. He is located in Kittery/ Maine.

Thomas grew up among vineyards, forests and the historic architecture of the small city of Bernkastel-Kues in the Moselle valley in Germany. Since childhood passionate for nature, he admired and collected plants, animal bones, sea shells and fossils. Together with his father, he also gardened extensively and kept sheep and bees.

Influenced by his parents idealism and his mother's social activism, Thomas pursued a career that would allow him a positive contribution to the world. After obtaining a degree in agriculture from Kassel University he worked in Germany, France, Australia, and for three years as a volunteer in Niger /West Africa. There he conducted field trials, monitored crops, trained and educated farmers and technicians, and developed educational materials. Upon his return to Germany he obtained an additional degree in Economics for Developing Countries and Cooperatives, and was then employed for 4 years in the West-Africa Office of the German Volunteers Service in Berlin.

In 1994 Thomas moved with his American wife and his newborn daughter to the United States, first settling in Cambridge /MA and soon thereafter in Portsmouth /NH, where he founded his own landscaping company called 'Green Art'. His business was known for its tasteful stone masonry and incorporation of native plants. For many years he was engaged as a speaker on garden design themes, habitat gardening, insects, and native bees, at garden clubs and at events organized by the Ecological Landscaping Alliance.

Thomas ended his landscaping career after 25 years to focus entirely on his art work. He is a self-tough artist. His first childhood sculptures were fake fish fossils for his nature collection. He later participated with drawings and sculptures in art shows in Germany, and painted nature during his time in Africa, where three of his illustrations were used for postal stamps by the Republic of Niger. He started sculpting on a larger scale while he had access to stone and tools through his landscaping business, and soon had solo exhibitions at his local Art Association in Kittery/ME, in Portsmouth /NH, and at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye /NH. Much of his work centers on the beauty and the vulnerability of life. Fish, whales, sea shells, echinoderms and other sea creatures are among his common subjects. Many of his sculptures explore the relationship between nature and human civilization.

In his public art, Thomas appreciates the specific challenges that come with each community, location and purpose of the art work.

Thomas Berger’s sculptures can be found at 'Green Art' - his studio and sculpture garden in Kittery. He regularly participates in reputable sculpture exhibits in New England, and has created more than 20 pieces of public art for parks, schools and other venues in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. His sales to private customers reach from Canada to New Jersey, and from Alaska to Germany.

Thomas won awards for his landscape design and his sculpting work. His gardens and sculptures were featured in home and garden magazines.