Who Is Eric Bransby, Painter, Draftsman and Muralist

In the process of earning a degree in Fine Arts, I had the fortune to study drawing and printmaking with Eric Bransby. As a naïve student, I didn't realize who this quiet, unassuming man was, just as he said as a student at the Kansas City Art Institute, he didn't know who his teacher Tom Benton was.

photo credit Community Photo Gallery

"Eric Bransby minces no words when he talks about his career: 'I paint for the masses.' In fact, in describing his convictions about art in general, he refers directly to [Jose Clemete] Orozco's belief that mural painting is a social art form, and as such has a social responsibility. The muralist, according to Bransby, works in tandem with the architect, and in so doing structures his work so that the public -- the human masses who use the building -- gain a common appreciation of the space that both envelopes and unites them in a shared aim, a purpose that the murals themselves illuminate and reify. Indeed, it is those honestly rendered men and women, a humanity of emotions and thought, not artificially constructed automatons, who give the energy of shared beliefs and common values, in short, life to space. No wonder, then, that his career as a painter has been an ongoing mission to put figures on the wall: They are the unifying lyrics that give meaning to the embracing music of architecture." ~William Underwood Eiland

by William Underwood Eiland

While Bransby's "homework" for any mural commission concentrated on the figure and its placement on the wall, he also studied local history so that his mural reflected the intentions of those who commissioned it. Bransby is eloquent in explaining this part of his preparation in the brochure distributed at the unveiling of the mural: "The shape of a community is formed not so much by rivers, buildings and monuments as by the acts of man. The men and women of Liberty's past, a few famous, many others whose names are lost to us, have by their diligence, foresightedness, courage and faith shaped the character of this community. It is fitting then that human beings be the recurring image of the Liberty mural." Restating beliefs he learned from and shared with Benton and Charlot, Bransby was well aware that the mural itself was a reflection of the city's past, present and future: "The men and women who in the future will convene in the Liberty City Council Chamber, and whose actions will determine the direction of the continuing history of Liberty, will thus symbolically share the podium with the historical figures who formed the City's heritage."

*Eric James Bransby, "Liberty: The Heritage Years," n.d., n.p.

Vance Kirkland Collection Prints and Drawings by Arvada Center

photo credit Community Photo Gallery

Cossitt Hall Rotunda ceiling mural painted 1948 by artist Eric Bransby, Colorado College

In 1948, artist Eric Bransby painted a mural in the entrance rotunda of Cossitt. "Settlement of the West" depicts goldseekers, migrating settlers, the cattle industry, and trappers and traders. Born in Albany, New York, in 1916, Bransby studied at Colorado College and taught at Yale University, the University of Illinois, Western Illinois University, and the University of Missouri. Other Colorado Springs area sites with murals executed by Bransby include the Colorado Springs Medical Center, U.S. Air Force Academy Planetarium (later installed at the Colorado Springs Municipal Airport), Air Defense Command Headquarters, and the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum. In 2002, Bransby, then in his eighties, returned to restore his mural in Cossitt's rotunda. ~~ http://www.coloradocollege.edu/welcome/walkingtour/cossitt.php

Bransby would go on and have other distinguished muralists as teachers, but his training with Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute was in his words "quite accidental. I didn't know who Tom Benton was. I grew up in a little suburb of Omaha -- a very culturally-deprived little community. Nobody in the family was interested in art as such. I knew of Grant Wood. Iowa. And I'd heard the name Tom Benton but I didn't know anything about Benton. I didn't know he was at the Art Institute. I had originally planned to go to the Chicago Art Institute but I couldn't swing it." ~W. Eiland Berardi, Under The Influence, 52

Bransby remarks that the textbook for all painting students was Max Doerner's Materials of the Artist and Their Use in Painting. Moreover, most students owned Benton's The Artist in America.

Eric J. Bransby; professor emeritus of art; B.A., M.A. (Colorado College); M.F.A. (Yale University).