Berman Museum

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The Berman Legacy

Farley Berman was born in Anniston in 1910. After attending the University of Alabama, he graduated with a law degree from Emory University in 1934. While practicing law in Atlanta, Berman also joined the Army Reserves in 1937 and enlisted in 1941 after Pearl Harbor. He spent much of his time in the service in Military Intelligence. He met his wife Germaine while he was stationed in North Africa in World War II. She was a French National and a member of the French Intelligence. As Berman later recalled, "I was spying on her, and she was spying on me." They were married in 1945 and returned to Anniston to make their home and live for the remainder of their lives.

Farley Berman suggested that his collecting began at the age of 6. "I started with a little .22 caliber rifle, one thing led to another and I ended up with the collection I have today." Weapons certainly remained a fascination for Berman, but he also gathered historic objects and "older things" from the time he was at school at Emory.

Germaine shared his passion for collecting, "She collected almost as many items as I did," Berman later recalled. They spent four decades traveling the world together; he collected rare weapons and she collected works of fine art. "I used up four passports, which gives you some idea how much traveling I did. I had dealers and collectors all over the world."

Berman preferred to remain mysterious when asked how he acquired much of his collection. Some pieces, he suggested, might have made their way home in his bedroll after World War II; others, he liked to say, simply appeared in his house. In fact, the Bermans were very astute and conscientious collectors. They worked closely with dealers, other collectors and well-known auction houses to make many of their acquisitions. Other objects were purchased as they traveled and may have been found in antique shops and at flea markets.

Included in the collection are hundreds of bronzes, paintings by European and American artists, historically significant artifacts, ethnographic material, art from Asia, weaponry, and historical documents.