Painting takes over physician's life; Public-health specialist prefers his art to career in science

By LOIS BAKER
News Services Editor

Dennis Bertram-physician, UB public-health specialist and accomplished scientist-is ready to give it all up for art.

The clinical assistant professor of social and preventive medicine three years ago rekindled a love of painting he had abandoned decades earlier. When one of his new works was accepted into an international juried show this February, there was no turning back.

"If I could, I would do nothing but paint," said Bertram, sitting in the living room of his turn-of-the-century North Buffalo home, where his canvases cover the walls and cluster in the corners. "But I can't afford to."

Thus, as with physicians-turned-painters-or-poets throughout history, science subsidizes the art. Bertram spends mornings at the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, helping direct the school's new Master of Public Health Program and its preventive-medicine residency. In the afternoons and evenings, he takes classes, paints and applies to art shows.

"My wife tells me I'm catching up, keeping up and going ahead all at the same time."

Bertram's divergence from art early on is a telling example of environment subverting genetics. "Art is something I wanted to do when I was a kid," he said. "I was the one who did the illustrations for the school newspaper and painted the stage sets in high school. I even won an art contest.

"But there was no art education in my grade school or high school. There were no role models and I had no encouragement. I was raised to believe in self-sacrifice, to live life for the betterment of others. To go into art would have seemed selfish.

"But there was lots of encouragement to go into science," he said. "Lots of role models, and science offered lots of opportunity. And I was good at it."

Consequently, Bertram majored in zoology, not art, at Indiana University and earned a medical degree from Washington University. He investigated art schools after graduating from medical school, but didn't have the courage then to make a major career change, he said. Instead, Bertram went to the Johns Hopkins University and earned a master's degree in public health and a doctorate in science.

For nine years, he was an assistant professor of social and preventive medicine at UB, conducting health-services research and publishing papers in scientific journals. In January 1995, he left UB to manage the technical-information program locally for The HMO Group, where he assessed the scientific merit and effectiveness of medical techniques.

Bertram's wife, Peggy Brooks-Bertram, assistant to the vice president in the UB Office of Public Service and Urban Affairs, inadvertently pointed him back to art.

"It was around Christmas in 1995, and my wife wanted to do something different in the foyer for the holidays, so she dragged out the drawings I did in medical school. I didn't realize they were still around. I looked at them and thought, 'Hey! I wasn't so bad! Let me rethink this.'"

When Bertram left The HMO Group in 1996 to work as a consultant, the less-rigid schedule provided time to paint. He enrolled in art classes at Buffalo State College, began to draw and paint again, and this time around, there was plenty of encouragement. He submitted works to an amateur art show at the Erie County Fair and won ribbons, recognition that spurred him on.

When his painting "At Ease," a meticulously rendered oil on masonite depicting gardening tools resting against each other in a corner of his Crescent Avenue garage, was one of 116 pieces, out of 1,500 submissions, accepted into the New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts' 12th International Juried Show, he was thrilled.

The show was juried by Nan Rosenthal, consultant in 20th-century art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and ran from Feb. 15 through March 29.

Bertram was especially pleased that his very traditional piece, influenced by Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth, was selected, despite fitting into neither of the two movements Rosenthal said characterized most of the selections: collage and assemblage, and surrealism.

With his talent affirmed, Bertram presses on fearlessly. "I no longer have doubts, as I did when I was younger, that I am able to do it," Bertram said. "Now all I need is time."