Olivia De Berardinis was born in California in 1948, but spent most of her childhood on the east coast. Her father, Sante De Berardinis, a freelance aeronautical engineer, travelled from job to job. As an only child constantly uprooted and thrust into new environments, Olivia used her blossoming artistic talents to alienate new friends and teachers, constantly being used to do sketches and portraits for her classmates and neighbors. In 1967 she attended the New York School of Visual Arts as an outpatient. She then wandered aimlessly until 1974, when necessity demanded a direction. Olivia returned to what she was most comfortable doing, what she had been doing since childhood, painting women. She found commercial work illustrating for periodicals, and quickly secured a niche paint-ing erotic fantasies for the men's magazines. She met Joel in 1975, and two years later they began a greeting card business, 0 Cards, to publish Olivia's art. They married in 1979, living on Manhattan's Upper West Side. They moved to Los Angeles in 1987, where they reside today. In 1987 the Tamara Bane Gallery of Los Angeles opened its doors with a show by Olivia. OLIVIA LINKS EOlivia - the offical site OLIVIA BOOKS Let Them Eat Cheesecake : The Art of Olivia Second Slice : The Art of Olivia Olivia, Catalogue Raisonne : 15 Years
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