Tyger River. mixed media. c.1960.

While a student at Converse College, Bramlett studied under August Cook for four years and painted nothing but portraits in oil. She continued to work very realistically until she did graduate work at the Unversity of North Carolina in 1956. After her studies at U.N.C., she created abstract scultpture.

By the time she was involved with the guild, Bramlett sculpted and painted abstractly, which neither fit in well with the academic realism nor the two-dimensional work preferred by the group.

Perhaps as a kind of compromise, in the early work "Tyger River," Bramlett stylized elements from life – river rocks and the reflections of trees on the water – to create a work that could be seen as either "abstract" or "realistic" depending on the viewer's predisposition.

 

 

Betty Jane Bramlett '57
• Charter Member of the AGS

Active in AGS: 1957-61, 1974, 1981-present

EDUCATION:

  • Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of SC (1983)

  • MA in Fine Arts from Columbia University, New York (1959)

  • BA in Fine Arts Converse College (1947)

  • further graduate work at Furman University, George Washington University; and the University of NC, Chapel Hill, NC

ART RELATED:

  • (1959 to present) professional artist

  • (1963) 1st President of the Art Association when it was created from The Spartanburg Art Club

  • Art Consultant for the Spartanburg City Schools. Started the District 3 Arts Program

  • (1960s - 1999) Coordinator of Fine Arts, Spartanburg County School District No. 7

  • (1970s - present) Who's Who in American Art

  • (1989) Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Award of Outstanding Service in Art Education in Community and State

  • (1997) Converse College Alumnae Award for Career Achievement

ORIGIN:

  • Augusta, GA

  • moved to Charleston

  • father transferred to Spartanburg, SC in 1939

DESCRIPTION OF ARTWORK:

  • The 1960 guild calendar bio stated "Miss Bramlett is adept in both modern and academic painting, and excels in sculpture."

  • “'We were entirely 2-D,' says Bramlett, who smiles as she recalls trying to convince that long-ago jury of her peers that sculpture was 'serious art.'

    She made her case by invoking the name of Michelangelo, but had less success in relaxing the Guild’s early insistence on Realism.

    'It was 1957, it was the South, and abstract art was frowned upon,' says [Mary Ellen] Suitt."

    - from a 2004 interview of Betty Bramlet, Lois Cantrell and Mary Ellen Suitt by Jill Jones for the Spbg. Cnty. Museum of Art.