Harry Brorby (1927-2012) was an artist whose career in painting, printmaking, sculpting, and teaching (1940’s-1970’s) bore fruits of lasting impact on the art world today. Yellow Series #7, 1968, oil on canvas, won the Pauline Palmer Prize of $1500 dollars at the 72nd Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity at the Art Institute of Chicago (1969) and his work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Walker Art Center, to name a few.[1] The MoMA also showed his work in “an internationally circulating exhibition, Modern Art in the United States...”.[2] It is peculiar that for as influential as he seemingly was, not much has been said about him in as an artist in art historical scholarship.
Brorby was born in Chicago, Illinois to affluent parents Melvin and Rowena (Williams) Brorby, and received his BFA at Harvard University and later his MFA in Etching at the University of Iowa under the influential artist-professor Mauricio Lasansky.[3] After graduation, he moved to Tucson, Arizona and other Southwestern locations to explore the less-charted culture of the United States. He then spent his final years at his family’s estate in Holland, Michigan (where he founded the Ottawa Fine Arts Workshop), near Hope College and Saugatuck Center for the Arts. Under Harry’s geodesic dome-studio, perched on the dunes of Lake Michigan, lie some of his legacy: his well-known expressionistic ‘Yellow Series’ oil paintings, and lesser known three-dimensional Santos Figures, and Nur People. Harry Brorby’s artwork expresses the strongest influence from the OxBow Summer School of Painting, the work and teaching of Mauricio Lasansky, and the New Mexican Santos, all between the years 1945-1954.[4]
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[1] Weigle, Edith. "Exhibit of Radical Art Opens Institute Gallery." Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1959, sec. 2, p. 1.
[2] VanderHoff, Kerri. "A Legacy Discovered and Defined." Revue West Michigan (January 2014): 37.
[3] Deam, Edward L. 1974. “Notes on Harry Brorby.” Art International 18 (10): 22-49.
[4] Brorby, Harry. 1954. “Harry Brorby: A Three-fold Statement of Influence and Intent.”
Researched and written by Amanda Bennick (2015)
Brorby was born in Chicago, Illinois to affluent parents Melvin and Rowena (Williams) Brorby, and received his BFA at Harvard University and later his MFA in Etching at the University of Iowa under the influential artist-professor Mauricio Lasansky.[3] After graduation, he moved to Tucson, Arizona and other Southwestern locations to explore the less-charted culture of the United States. He then spent his final years at his family’s estate in Holland, Michigan (where he founded the Ottawa Fine Arts Workshop), near Hope College and Saugatuck Center for the Arts. Under Harry’s geodesic dome-studio, perched on the dunes of Lake Michigan, lie some of his legacy: his well-known expressionistic ‘Yellow Series’ oil paintings, and lesser known three-dimensional Santos Figures, and Nur People. Harry Brorby’s artwork expresses the strongest influence from the OxBow Summer School of Painting, the work and teaching of Mauricio Lasansky, and the New Mexican Santos, all between the years 1945-1954.[4]
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[1] Weigle, Edith. "Exhibit of Radical Art Opens Institute Gallery." Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1959, sec. 2, p. 1.
[2] VanderHoff, Kerri. "A Legacy Discovered and Defined." Revue West Michigan (January 2014): 37.
[3] Deam, Edward L. 1974. “Notes on Harry Brorby.” Art International 18 (10): 22-49.
[4] Brorby, Harry. 1954. “Harry Brorby: A Three-fold Statement of Influence and Intent.”
Researched and written by Amanda Bennick (2015)