Background
Brady, Carolyn was born on May 22, 1937 in Chickasha, Oklahoma, United States. Daughter of Morris Calvin and Ruth Lee (Reeves) Brady.
Brady, Carolyn was born on May 22, 1937 in Chickasha, Oklahoma, United States. Daughter of Morris Calvin and Ruth Lee (Reeves) Brady.
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, University Oklahoma, 1959. Master of Fine Arts, University Oklahoma, 1961.
Her work often consists of hyper-realistic watercolors of flowers and table settings. Early on, Brady became acquainted with the photorealist Joseph Raffael (she sub-let his apartment in 1962) and later identified him as her largest influence. In 1972, amply fulfilling a desire to do something more "real", Brady switched from fabric panels to watercolor and was soon producing photo-realistic works of complex color, texture, and intricacy.
In her obituary, the New York Times stated, "With their sharp focus, luminous colors and dimensions as great as 60 by 90 inches, her paintings have a hyper-realistic visual impact rarely encountered in the medium of watercolor."
Her largest works (5 feet by 75 feet) were meticulously rendered fields of blooming flowers painted to the very edge of the paper.
In the 1980s, table place settings, sometimes clean, sometimes with food partly consumed, became a favorite and frequent subject. "Her sensual and psychological appreciation for the elements of her meals takes them out of the category of reportage and into poetry."
Brady"s works have been exhibited in museums around the world, including the Baltimore Museum of Art (Maryland), the National Museum of American Art (Washington, District of Columbia), the Miyagi Museum of Art (Miyagi, Japan), the Orlando Museum of Art (Florida), the Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), and the National Academy of Design (New York).
In 1991, Brady was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1994.
Married William Lee Epton, February 8, 1936. 1 child, Alexander Brady Epton.