Bert MencoThe Art & The Legacy

The artist · 1946–2025

A life of curiosity.
A world within.

Bert Menco was a Dutch-American artist and scientist whose paintings, drawings and intaglio prints reveal a deeply personal universe.

Born in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and later based in Evanston, Illinois, he brought the same enduring curiosity to his creative practice as to his work in neurobiology at Northwestern University.

His art begins with an inner image: a doodle, a fleeting thought, a feeling. From it emerges a world of enigmatic figures, intimate narratives and unexpected connections.

Today, his work continues to carry his imagination forward. This collection honours the artist, the individual, and the stories he left behind.

Explore his paintings
Drawn portrait of Bert Menco at work, from his original memorial website

A lasting creative legacy

The imagination
lives on.

For information about individual works, the artist’s archive, or collecting a painting, please contact Bert Menco’s representative.

Private enquiries

The artist behind the work

Bert, in his own world

Bert Menco holding two prints, surrounded by his artwork
Bert with his prints — the artist and the world he brought to life.
Bert Menco drawing at his worktable beneath a magnifying lamp
At his worktable, bringing an image into being.
A close-up of Bert’s hand carefully engraving a line of faces into a copper plate
His hand at work — a quiet moment, a carefully drawn line.

In memoriam

Bert Menco — A World He Left for Us

There is something quietly moving about looking at a painting after the person who made it has gone. His hands have stopped working, yet the image still holds our attention. We can stand before it and feel that the conversation continues.

Bert Menco was born in the Netherlands in 1946, into a family that had survived the Holocaust and lost many of its loved ones. He grew up with the absence of people he would never have the chance to know. That history remained close to him throughout his life.

In his art, imagination gives us a way to approach difficult feelings. His figures can seem tender, bewildered, mischievous or lonely. They draw us into encounters whose meaning is never entirely settled. A glance or an outstretched hand may remind us of someone we love, a moment we remember, or something we have struggled to put into words.

Bert was also a scientist at Northwestern University. The patience he brought to research accompanied him into his art: looking carefully, working persistently, searching for the image he wanted to bring into being.

Those who knew him remembered his colourful clothes, his humour and the friendships he nurtured. After decades in the Chicago area, he returned to the Netherlands in 2023. He died in 2025.

His paintings remain.

An original carries the physical traces of his decisions: where he placed a colour, shaped a face, or brought two figures together. Living with it offers time to notice those choices—and to discover how our own response changes.

For the collector who feels that connection, a painting can become a deeply personal presence in a home.

Bert’s life has ended. There is still so much to discover in the world he left behind.

In his own words

Artist’s statement

“Though they may seem simple, especially my drawings and intaglio prints but also my paintings are actually quite elaborate; half a year’s work on an image is no exception for me. I draw directly or use small sketches, even doodles, as image-generating nuclei, often combining two or three that appear to complement each other. I rarely use concrete references, but rather work from inner visions.

I tend to be narrative in my own art, perhaps poetic narrative. I don’t see my images as telling a story but rather as reflections of inner feelings, similar to some poetry, and would like observers to read them as such. I like to believe that my work carries a certain mystery. My images are very much ‘inside out.’ I have usually some idea of what I want to obtain, but much of the image is generated while I draw or paint. The end product always surprises me; I am often amazed that there even is an end product.

Analyzing my own art is difficult but I think that the dreamlike images tend to deal with confined spaces which contain certain characters that reach out to one another but do not quite succeed in meeting, a reflection of this precarious balancing act that many of us have to deal with in our lives.”

— Bert Menco

Selected honours

Biography and statement in the original archive ↗