Barney Beckerman graduated from Boys High School in Brooklyn. He entered Cornell in 1911 in the College of Agriculture and graduated in 1915, when he officially changed his name to Bernard. In March 1918, he entered the Army as a sergeant, serving in the Chemical Warfare Service at the American University Experiment Station in Georgetown. He was discharged in November of 1919. After the war, he worked in Washington on the design of the bridge across the Potomac nearest to the Lincoln Memorial. By 1923, he had returned to Brooklyn. In 1937 he was an art teacher at Boys High School. He later moved to Forest Hills, NY, where he died on March 24, 1958.