Tony Berlant, West Coast Pop Artist Known for Metal and Nail Collages, Dies at 85

Tony Berlant, an American artist linked to the West Coast Pop art movement of the 1960s, has died at age 85. The Los Angeles Times reported that he died after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, a illness that gradually affects memory and thinking.

L.A. Louver, the Los Angeles gallery that had shown his work since 1984, confirmed the death. ARTnews published its report on 29 October 2026 and credited the Los Angeles Times for the original news.

Berlant was born in New York City in 1941. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was five, and the city became his home for most of his life. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, usually called UCLA, in 1961. He lived in Santa Monica, a beach city on the Los Angeles coast.

He is best known for large collages built from shards of printed metal and thousands of nails. A collage is a work made by fixing different materials onto one surface. Berlant's pieces were often big enough to fill a wall, and they took their look from the bright, everyday imagery that Pop artists drew on.

The Smithsonian's American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., describes his work as painterly collages and metal cubes. In the late 1980s, the museum says, his output moved away from three-dimensional forms. He kept working with metal and found materials across the decades that followed.

Berlant is survived by his wife, Helen Méndez, and his brother, Jeff Berlant. He is also survived by his daughter, Kate Berlant, a comedian who performs in film, television and live shows.

Berlant's work now sits in the hands of the galleries, collectors and museums that have cared for it. For the families who lend, look after and display art, his death means a long-standing voice in Los Angeles art has gone quiet. Those who knew him will remember him as a neighbour, a teacher of looking and a maker of very noisy, very careful walls.