Bernard Marks was a finalist in International Artist Magazine’s Seascapes, Rivers and Lakes art competition. Marks’ watercolor, The Colorado in the Canyon, appeared in the magazine’s June/July 2005 issue. The competition was open to painters worldwide and accepted works in all media.  

Bernard also won a Sponsor's Award for “Last Chance at Cedar Key” at the New Mexico Watercolor Society Fall 2005 show, a Golden Palette Award for "Zion Meadow" at the Society's Spring 2006 show, and Sponsors' Awards for "Black Canyon" at the Society's Fall 2006 show and "Grand Escalante" at its Spring 2007 show.

Bernard's "Late Afternoon at Grand Canyon" was featured in the highly-competitive 2006 Arts for the Parks national exhibit.

His work is represented at Mark Zoeller Studios on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, this gallery, and at Mariposa Fine Art in St. George, Utah. His paintings appear in the private collections of individuals and corporations around the country. 

Bernard is currently a member of:
• American Watercolor Society
• National Watercolor Society
• New Mexico Watercolor Society
• Plein Air New Mexico
• Watercolor West
He has been a watercolor artist all his adult life, but he put his painting career on hold for nearly twenty years while he earned an MBA at the University of Chicago and established an advertising/marketing agency in Illinois. In the late 1990s, he began to lighten his duties in his company in order to devote more time to painting. Along the way, he took courses and workshops with several well-known painters and teachers, including Robert Wade, Arne Westerman, Eric Wiegardt, Frank LaLumia and Alvaro Castagnet. 

For several years, Bernard studied portraiture with Richard Halstead, a nationally-recognized portrait artist. “I was usually the only person in the class working in watercolor," he recalls. "I enjoyed the challenge and the discipline that portraiture demands, even though I had no interest in painting portraits full time.” Now a full-time resident of Santa Fe, Bernard divides his time between plein air painting and studio painting. 

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