Colorado Public Radio produced a wonderful piece on artist and local living treasure Eric Bransby.
It aired Saturday on NPR's Weekend Edition. An extended version will
air on CPR stations (in Denver, Boulder and Pueblo) on Wednesday (1/7/15) at
6:51a, 8:51a and 5:50p. The segment will be part of a weekly podcast on
cpr.org on Friday. You can see the transcripts and hear the original NPR report here.
Here's a brief tribute to Bransby and his work by FAC Museum Director and Chief Curator Blake Milteer:
Since
the 1940s, Eric Bransby has been among America ’s most renowned mural
painters. Over the course of his esteemed career, Bransby has developed a
signature style of traditional Renaissance-based figurative compositions, and
has adopted a strong abstract sensibility that allows him to integrate
depictions of the human figure with architecturally-based geometric shapes.
As
a young artist in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, Bransby nurtured his skills
studying under renowned American artists Thomas Hart Benton and Josef Albers.
Of great significance to the Fine Arts Center’s history is that he also studied
under master muralists Boardman Robinson and Jean Charlot at the Fine Arts
Center School, where he later taught. His association with these artists in the
1940s represents one of our enduring connections to the FAC's predecessor, the
Broadmoor Art Academy.
Bransby
became an important muralist and draftsman in his own right, creating permanent
works for Kansas State University, the municipal building in Liberty, Missouri,
the University of Missouri, Brigham Young University, Colorado College, the
Pioneers Museum, and the Air Force Academy among others. In the mid-1980s,
Bransby was commissioned to restore the FAC’s badly-damaged façade mural
originally painted by Boardman Robinson. Bransby, who still lives and works in Colorado Springs ,
received the 2007 Pikes Peak Arts Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award. At 98,
Bransby continues to create art in his classic realist style and depicts the
nobility of human endeavors.
The
Fine Arts Center has been privileged to maintain a 70-year relationship with
Eric Bransby. The FAC has curated many solo and group exhibitions which
included his work, including the major exhibition From Roots to Soaring Visions in 2000-2001, which highlighted both
Eric and Mary Ann Bransby's work. In 1985, Bransby skillfully restored Boardman
Robinson's mural on the FAC facade, and in 2012, he completed a spectacular
mural celebrating the FAC's 75th anniversary. The FAC collection also boasts 1 oil
painting, 3 drawings, 4 lithographs, and multiple studies for his 75th
anniversary mural. Our painting The Good
Book, 1941 is currently on loan to David Cook Gallery, Denver for their exhibition
Transcending Figuration: Bransby in Retrospect, which is open through January
31. - FAC Museum Director and Chief Curator Blake Milteer
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