George Berry, Sr., was a wood carver from Pearl, Mississippi. He carved life-like animal statues out of wood. He won a $5,000 Folk Artist Fellowship from Mississippi Arts Commission in 1999. He had no classical training, learning to whittle from his father.
He moved to Pearl, Mississippi from Vinita, Oklahoma in 1970. He was an instructor at the Piney Woods School until 1984. He was a charter member of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi. He taught at the Allison’s Wells School of Arts and Crafts.
Berry wrote Wood Carving: An Expression in Wood. He was awarded the Artist Achievement Award from the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2001. He had carved the two pieces that are used for the Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts awards in 1996 and 1997. A gallery was named for him at the Mississippi Craft Center in October of 2014. Berry passed away in 2014.
See the page in the Mississippi Folklife and Folk Artist Directory for George Berry.