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Manuel Bromberg

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Manuel Bromberg
Born
Manuel Abraham Bromberg

(1917-03-06)March 6, 1917
Centerville, Iowa, U.S.
DiedFebruary 3, 2022(2022-02-03) (aged 104)
Alma materCleveland Institute of Art
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
OccupationArtist
Employer(s)North Carolina State University
State University of New York at New Paltz
Works Progress Administration
SpouseJane Dow (m. 1941–2008; her death)
Children2, including Susan Mesinai
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship (1946)
Legionnaire of Legion of Merit

Manuel Abraham Bromberg (March 6, 1917 – February 3, 2022) was an American artist and educator. He served in the United States Army as Official War Artist for the European Theater of Operations during World War II. Bromberg was a Professor Emeritus of Art, at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He was a 1946 Guggenheim Fellow.[1]

Life

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Bromberg was born in Centerville, Iowa, to David Bromberg, an immigrant from Germany, and Tonata Sobul, an immigrant from Poland.[2][3] At the age of 16, Bromberg was chosen the winner of the prestigious George Bellows Award, a national art competition among high school students. First prize was a year's scholarship to the Pratt Institute in New York City, but he opted instead to accept a full scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art.[4] He studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, with Boardman Robinson and Henry Varnum Poor, from 1932 to 1940.

Technical Sgt. Manuel Bromberg, World War II
Chuck Wagon Serenade (1940), post office mural in Greybull, Wyoming

Bromberg completed three murals for the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts:[4] Greybull, Wyoming,[5] Tahlequah, Oklahoma,[6] and Geneva, Illinois.[7][8] Bromberg married Jane Dow in Woodstock, New York, in December 1941.[9]

In 1943, at the age of 26, Bromberg was appointed by George Biddle, chairman of the War Department Art Advisory Board, as an official war artist. Bromberg was assigned to serve with the European Theater of Operations (England, France and Germany) and landed on Omaha Beach in June 1944.[10][11] While in France, Bromberg met Pablo Picasso,[12] Jean Cocteau, and Georges Braque.[10]

In 1944, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.[13]

Bromberg taught at Salem College, North Carolina State University College of Design, from 1949 to 1954, where he collaborated with Buckminster Fuller and others to form Skybreak Carolina Corp.[14] In 1953, Bromberg was commissioned to create a mural for the student union building of NCSU.[15]

In the 1960s, while Professor of Painting at the State University of New York at New Paltz, Bromberg created a series of monumentally-scaled castings of cliff faces.[16] One of Bromberg's cliff sculptures appears in the permanent collection of Storm King Art Center.[17]

Bromberg lived in Woodstock, New York.[13] He turned 100 in March 2017,[18] and died on February 3, 2022, at the age of 104.[19]

References

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  1. ^ "Manuel Bromberg - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". Archived from the original on 2012-10-12. Retrieved 2011-11-10.
  2. ^ "Person Details for Manuel Bromberg, "Iowa, County Births, 1880-1935" — FamilySearch.org". familysearch.org. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  3. ^ Iowa, Delayed Birth Records, 1856-1940
  4. ^ a b "New Deal Murals". manuelbromberg.com. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  5. ^ https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/87000780_photos NPS NPGallery: USPS-Thematic Resources,Wyoming, Greybull MPO, Greybull, Wyoming - Showing "Chuck Wagon Serenade" by Manuel Bromberg (1940)
  6. ^ "New Deal WPA Art in Oklahoma". wpamurals.com. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  7. ^ "Historic Post Offices". savethepostoffice.com. 13 June 2012. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  8. ^ "Image included of "Fish Fry in the Park" Geneva, Illinois by Manuel Bromberg in 1941". Archived from the original on 2012-04-25. Retrieved 2011-11-10.
  9. ^ "North Carolina Modernist Houses - Documenting, Preserving, Promoting Residential Modern Architecture". trianglemodernisthouses.com. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  10. ^ a b "World War II". manuelbromberg.com. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  11. ^ Adam Levy (May 14, 2004). "Snapshots of war". The Guardian.
  12. ^ https://waamblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/bromberg-on-left-with-picasso-in-paris-sutdio-1945.jpg Bromberg (Left) W/Picasso, Paris Studio 1945 (JPG)
  13. ^ a b "They Drew Fire - Manuel Bromberg". pbs.org. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  14. ^ Popko, Edward S. (2012-07-30). Divided Spheres: Geodesics and the Orderly Subdivision of the Sphere. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-4665-0430-1.
  15. ^ "Manual Bromberg, professor at North Carolina State College's School of Design, supervising work on a mural to be installed in the College Union (later the Erdahl-Cloyd Student Union)". ncsu.edu. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  16. ^ "Cliff Sculptures". manuelbromberg.com. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  17. ^ "Storm King Collection - Storm King Art Center". stormking.org. Archived from the original on 11 February 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  18. ^ Staff (2017-03-06). "Manuel Bromberg is a painter, sculptor, and influential teacher whose distinguished career spans nearly a century". manuelbromberg.com. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  19. ^ Platt, Frances Marion (5 March 2022). "Woodstock art icon Manuel Bromberg passes at age 104". HV1. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
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