Tom Berg is best known for his 31-year-long career of painting chairs, but as critic Tom Collins states in Berg’s 1997 catalog essay, “the chair is not the subject of the painting.” Instead, Berg’s paintings give the viewer a sense of the action taking place just on the periphery of the canvas – or perhaps we are even part of it. Someone has just left our field of vision, the empty chair resonating with a moment of patience and absence. Berg is concerned with imbuing the object of our gaze with significance, and does so through a keen attentiveness to the technical aspects of painting.

Berg earned a double degree in English and fine art, followed by a master of arts in printmaking and a master of fine arts in painting from the University of Wyoming.

He has shown in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Denver Museum of Art. He has also shown widely in many group and solo exhibitions in leading American galleries over the last 30 years. His work is in the permanent collections of:

- Museum of New Mexico
- Site Santa Fe
- The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
- The Harwood Foundation, Taos, NM
- The Kansas City Art Institute
- The Phillip Morris Collection. New York, NY

He lives and works in Nambé, NM, and has shown in Santa Fe for more than 30 years.