He won the First Prize in Painting at the Salón Nacional with Figura. Also selected for this salon, Primeros pasos was bought by the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. Besides, Berni was awarded the Premio Gobierno de Santa Fe at the XVII Salón in that province and the Prize to the Illustrated Book of the Salón Nacional de Artes Decorativas.

He became friends with Héctor Agosti, an outstanding left wing intellectual who, in April de 1945, would publish in Contrapunto magazine the essay "Defensa del realismo". Through this printing he would support Berni’s aesthetical ideas and begin a polemics in which he would question the abstract tendencies for having led art towards its dehumanization.

Berni held an individual show at Amigos del Arte. Also there, he took part of the exhibition Pintura together with Basaldúa, Butler, Badi, Forner, Gómez Cornet, Pettoruti, Spilimbergo and Soldi. Orquesta típica was sent to the VII Salón de Otoño at the Sociedad de Artistas Plásticos and Nancy took part in the XIX Salón de Bellas Artes de Rosario.