ARTIST STATEMENT
ROBERT H. BRANHAM
"The visual arts cannot be translated into a spoken language. Art is a language in and unto itself."
"I believe art standards of quality must not be allowed to be set by institutions, be they academic or avant-garde. Only the individual has that sacred right."
“My interest in art started at a very early age. I was inspired by Degas to try my hand at nudes at the early age of 12. My fascination with femininity and the female form has stayed with me all my life. Perhaps deepened by the fact that I had six daughters. Since my retirement from commercial art in 1990, I have devoted my life to my serious art. I have always kept the two very separate and grabbed every moment I could for the art that was not just personal, but gave meaning to my life.”
“The only time there was perhaps a blending of the two (commercial and fine art) was during the time I was ask to do some paintings for an upcoming made for TV film. I won an Emmy nomination for my work for Title Paintings in Zeigfield: The Man and his Women, in 1978.”
Robert H. Branham
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Robert was born 1926, in Louisville, Kentucky. He attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1946 through 1948.
While living in Chicago, he enjoyed early success as a talented artist, which included a direct commission from the Vatican in Rome. Although not a Catholic, Mr. Branham had a subsequent audience with the Pope at the Vatican for recognition of this work.
He has since led a long, varied and diverse career as an illustrator, consultant, and conceptual design artist for the motion picture industry. Between films he conceived, designed and built exhibitions in Tokyo Tower in Tokyo, Japan, Hershey Museum at Hershey, Pennsylvania, NBC in Los Angeles, and Hamley’s in London, England. He worked between films as a freelance artist and illustrator for Duell Corp., formally know as R. Duell & Associates, for over 20 years. He owned his own company for several years from which he conceived, designed, built, and installed part of an entertainment area for Tropworld Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Mr. Branham lives in Malibu, California where he passionately works at his fine art which he has always done. He has kept this work separate from the commercial world, including the commerciality of the Fine Art world. Consequently, his work has rarely been shown; this full body of work has the unique advantage of representing a continuum of growth throughout an artist's career.
Among those who Branham says inspired him early as an artist include Rouault, Bonnard, Matisse, Klee, Munch, and Giacometti. Later, his work was also influenced by Carl Jung and Jungian psychology.
His methods are a result of constant exploration and development as an artist. He most often uses a combination of oil and acrylic, but has experimented with many other mixed media including plaster and clay casting, and polystyrene sculpture. Most of his work is figurative. His latest efforts have been with abstracts; exploring the idea of "point-counterpoint" as a musical allegory to art and painting.
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