Born into a family steeped in the arts and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Berger was accepted to study at the prestigious School of the Art Institute there. He attended painting classes taught by Boris Anisfeld and Paul Wieghardt and pictorial composition and color theory taught by his uncle, Edgar Rupprecht. He also received training from Isabel McKinnon and Leroy Niemann.
Following service in the U.S. Military, Berger continued studies leading to a B.F.A. degree in Fine Arts and a teaching certificate in Art. He then worked for several years at a high-end retail store’s advertising department, Marshall Field & Co., then shifted to teaching art in Glencoe, a northern suburb of Chicago, for nine years. He was then exhibiting paintings at the Deerpath Art Gallery in Lake Forest where he lived, and established a reputation for his pen and ink studies of Chicago scenes selling in galleries there.
In 1968 the Berger family of five moved to Canada, to a ranch in the British Columbia interior, where he painted scenes of the Cariboo and Chilcotin. Here he began exhibinting at the Alex Fraser Gallery in Vancouver.
Don now lives in Kelowna, British Columbia and spends most of his time growing and photographing flower blossoms.The majority of his works are now oil paintings of his own flowers.His work is easily identified.He paints larger than life blossoms choosing this format to draw the viewer in and see details not visible on a smaller scale.