Bernardus Antonie “Bern” van Beek, painter, was born in Amsterdam on January 30, 1875. Primarily a painter, he focused on landscapes and aquatic landscapes. Van Beek initially worked with his father as a decorative interior painter and he later attended the School of Arts and Crafts. He never attended an academy but his early work was greatly influenced by the painter Paul Gabriël. Bern Van Beek was a key figure in the Kortenhoef School of Artists, a group of Dutch landscape painters who were greatly motivated by the Hague School and the Barbizon School. Other artists in the Kortenhoef School were Willem Roelofs and Jan Hillebrand Wijsmuller. In 1928, Van Beek entered a painting into the 1928 Olympic Art Competition.

Bernardus Antonie van Beek died on March 3, 1941, in Kortenhoef, Netherlands.