Robert Julius Brawley (1937 - April 14, 2006) was an American

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

, known for his rich still life and figure works. Brawley gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1963 and a Master of Fine Arts in 1965 from the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

. As a student, he was an

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

painter, but after happening upon the work of Flemish realists, while studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, and departing for Northern Europe to view more

Netherlandish The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and parts of Northern France. Both Belgium and the ...

work, he turned toward representational painting, primarily still lifes and figure work. Many of his still lifes are symbolic and, although often described as a realist or hyperrealist, in a 1988 interview he remarked, "I don't think I'm a realist....I'm an illusionist." His works are on display in the

National Museum of American Art The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art gallery, art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of A ...

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

, and other venues. His work has been mentioned in many books and magazine articles. He was a professor, and chairman of the art department at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

. Brawley died in 2006 after a six-month battle with cancer.

External links

The Smithsonian American Art MuseumArt Institute ChicagoSpencer Museum of ArtThe Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Sources

Newspaper Article, Lawrence Journal WorldAskart.com entry

References

1937 births 2006 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists San Francisco Art Institute alumni University of Kansas faculty 20th-century American male artists {{US-painter-1930s-stub