Mildred Bryan Brooks, Twilight

MILDRED BRYAN BROOKS
1901-1995

Twilight
Etching, 20th Century

Mildred Brooks was born in Missouri and came with her family to Long Beach, California in 1907 when she was six years old. She graduated with honors from USC. She went on to study at Otis and Chouinard Art Institutes. Her teachers/mentors were Tolles Chamberlin (also in this show), and Arthur Millier, who steered her toward printmaking, with an emphasis on etching. She began her career designing Christmas cards but soon acquired her own printing press and began working on her own. She taught at Stickley Art School in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Art Institute, and Pomona College. Her work won awards nationally, including one from the Chicago Society of Etchers – their first ever awarded to a woman or a Westerner! During the Depression she was able to support her family completely with her printmaking. She is best known for her etchings of trees.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham