Mildred Bryant Brooks - The Promise of Spring - Etching AP 1264

One of the great observers of trees, Mildred Bryant Brooks came late to her art, and within it her greatest love, etching, a career cut short by her loss of eyesight, but she nevertheless created an extraordinary body of work, of which this is a beautiful example.

Measures 16" x 18 7/8", Numbered 43/75. Signed. 1932 or '34.

Mildred Bryant Brooks (1901-1995) grew up in Long Beach and attended USC, where the artist F. Tolles Chamberlin encouraged her to explore printmaking. She began her career as an etcher in 1929 under the guidance of Arthur Millier, who was also the art critic for the Los Angeles Times. Soon Bryant was teaching at the Stickney Art Institute and often lecturing on etching. In the early 1930s she began winning major prizes from print societies nationwide, including the California Society of Etchers, the Chicago Society of Etchers, and the Society of American Etchers. Her etching Companions received the annual prize from the Chicago Society of Etchers in 1937, the first time the prize had been awarded to an artist west of the Mississippi. Known especially for her landscape etchings, in which lovingly observed trees often occupy center stage, Brooks was active throughout the 1930s and into the early 1940s.