Rex Brandt

Rexford Elson Brandt (August 12, 1914 – March 21, 2000) was an American artist and educator. Much of his oeuvre consists of paintings inspired by the life and geography of the West Coast of the United States, particularly California. Brandt worked in multiple mediums including print making, oil painting and watercolor painting. He gained national recognition for his watercolor painting during the period from the mid-1930s to the 1990s. Early in his career he was associated with California Scene Painting but after World War II Brandt focused on complex, semi-abstract works. The depiction of the regenerative warmth of the sun was a central focus of his painting; he wrote that "Everyone has hang-ups, I suppose. Mine is sunshine. Not sunlight – although I like to paint sunlight too." Along with the painter Phil Dike, he opened the Brandt-Dike Summer School of Painting in 1947 at his home in Corona del Mar where he continued to teach summer classes for thirty-eight years.

Life Rex Brandt was born in 1914 in San Diego, California to Alfred O. Brandt, a Swedish immigrant, and Ellen Dale Woodward. His family later moved to Los Angeles and then Riverside, California where he graduated from high school. While still in high school he took art classes at the Chouinard School of Art. He attended Riverside Junior College and went on to get his bachelor's degree at the University of California, Berkeley in 1936. While at Berkeley he was exposed to the ideas of Hans Hoffman, who had recently taught there. He studied Chinese landscape painting, Byzantine art, and the modernist painters Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse.

In March 1938, Brandt married the sculptor and painter Joan Irving, whom he had met at Riverside Junior College. In 1943, Brandt, having left Riverside Junior College, moved with his young family to Corona del Mar, just south of Newport Beach, where they had purchased property. He named his property "Blue Sky" and it was there he lived and worked throughout the rest of his life. He opened a summer painting school at "Blue Sky" in 1947 and the school remained in operation through 1985 when it closed due to increasing urbanization. Brandt also expanded his sources of income beyond painting and teaching; he worked as a designer for West Coast Ship Building and formed his own commercial and residential design firm, Rex Brandt Associates. Brandt was active in the civic life of the Newport Beach area; he was one of the original members of the Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission of Newport Beach, he designed the city's official seal, and helped plan the state beach at Corona Del Mar.

Brandt also spent considerable time in the San Juan Islands. He purchased property on Orcas Island in 1964. Then in 1966 Brandt and his wife built a second home on Shaw Island where they typically spent a few months a year. During his time in the San Juans, Brandt reestablished his print making practice, he wrote: "I've turned again to an early love of block cutting because its power and simplicity express the way I feel about the San Juan Islands."

He died at his home in Corona del Mar at the age of 85. Retrospective exhibitions have been mounted by the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum (2000) and the Laguna Art Museum (2014).

Selected awards and affiliations First in Watercolor for Bay Breeze, California State Fair, 1934. First in Prints for Building the Bridges, Los Angeles County Fair, 1936. Director, Riverside Junior College Art Center, 1938–1943. Vice-president, California Watercolor Society, 1947. President, California Watercolor Society, 1949. American Artist Special Citation for The Brothers Light, American Water Color Society Annual Exhibition, 1952. Associate Academician, National Academy of Design, 1955. Brugger Award for Going to the Race, California Water Color Society Exhibition, 1956 Vice President, American Watercolor Society, 1965–1969 Samuel F. B. Morse medal for the painting Morning: Rocky Point, National Academy of Design, 1968. Lily Saportas Award for the painting Morning: Rocky Point, American Watercolor Society, 1968. Life Fellow, Royal Society of the Arts, 1972. Full Academician, National Academy of Design, 1974. Dolphin Fellow, American Watercolor Society, 1981. Teacher Achievement Award for Watercolor, American Artist, 1993. Helena Modjeska Cultural Legacy Award, Orange County Arts Awards, 2000 (posthumous).