Among Branches

Mildred Bryant Brooks

Southern California printmaker Mildred Bryant Brooks was an exceptionally skilled etcher who also printed for other artists. Her signature works were her etchings of the trees that grew in California, especially the ancient oaks and towering sequoias. She would often add a figure or cabin to the composition, in part to create a sense of scale for the main subjects.

"Among Branches" was done in 1942. The composition is of an ancient California Live Oak tree, its branches intertwining and twisting across the plate. The leaves are dots of light and dark that create a kind of atmospheric halo around the structure.

Brooks was a member of the California Society of Etchers, California Society of Printmakers, Chicago Society of Etchers, Society of American Etchers and the Pasadena Society of Artists. Her etchings were included in numerous national exhibitions and garnered twenty-two awards.

Her print, "Companions", was awarded the 28th yearly prize at the Chicago Society of Etchers exhibition in 1937, this was the first time the Society had honored either a woman and the third time an artist from the Western US. Brooks gave up printmaking during World War II and turned her attention to mural painting.