Bonnie Bronson

Bonnie Jean Bronson (March 9, 1940 – August 4, 1990) was an American painter and sculptor and one of Portland, Oregon's most prominent artists during the 1970s and 1980s.

Early life and education Bronson was born in Portland in 1940, the daughter of Dave Grayson Bronson and Mary Estelle Hill Bronson. Her father served in the United States Air Force during World War II. Her parents divorced in 1947, and both parents remarried before 1950. Bronson attended the University of Kansas, the University of Oregon, and the Portland Art Museum School.

Career Bronson made paintings, tapestries, and sculptures from steel, chrome, enamel, wood, and corrugated cardboard. In 1964 she was part of a four-person show at the Portland Art Museum. In 1990, Bronson died at age 50, in a mountaineering accident on Mazama Glacier on Mount Adams, Washington. In 1993 the Portland Art Museum held a retrospective exhibit of works by Bronson. In 2011 a citywide exhibition of works by Bronson and Bronson fellows was mounted at Reed College, Portland Art Museum, Portland Northwest College of Art, Lewis & Clark College, and several private galleries.