Historic Artist of Fort Lauderdale, Florida - Carl Brandien

Carl Brandien, Windy Day, Ft. Lauderdale Beach, 1944. Oil on board, 11 ¾ by 13 ½ inches.

 

Carl Brandien, and his wife Kathleen, first came to Ft. Lauderdale from New York City in 1941. They loved the area and moved there permanently two weeks before Pearl Harbor. The couple met when Kathleen, a British citizen and a survivor of the Lusitania sinking, working in New York City in 1929, decided to take a vacation trip to California on a steamer. Brandien, who called himself the vagabond artist, was traveling around the world. Brandien was impressed that Kathleen had the courage to travel that far with only ten dollars in her pocket. They were married and from 1930 to 1937 formed the vagabondage, traveling the world on a quest for life, and to discover and paint beauty.

Brandien did commercial illustration for many magazines including Life Magazine. He opened his Little Studio with a garden front at 716 E. Las Olas, in Ft. Lauderdale in 1942. The Miami Herald, January 16, 1944, pictured Brandien and his wife. “With inspiration from the war and the fight for democracy, Carl Brandien, America’s ‘Vagabond artist,’ here with his versatile British-born wife, Kay, at their Fort Lauderdale studio, believes that American artists are destined to produce the finest art of all times…Now hanging at the White House is his painting ‘Stars and Stripes’ depicting the U. S. War fleet at anchor in the Hudson, with brilliant display of searchlights against the night sky… ‘I have visited 45 countries over a stretch of 25 years, always seeking to understand the meaning of life and then endeavoring to interpret it through my art.”

At the end of World War II Brandien closed his Lauderdale studio and returned to New York and Gloucester, Massachusetts, but couldn’t stay away from Florida. The couple returned in 1948. Brandien painted murals for the Friar’s Club and the Russian Club, in New York City and the Officers Mess Hall at West Point. His painting of the opening night at the Metropolitan Opera was presented to director David Mannes. He served with the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I and was honorably discharged in 1919. Brandien and Kay are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Carl Brandien, Hurricane at Tarpon Bend, September 15, 1945

 

Born: July 24, 1886, New York City.
Died: January 1, 1965, Ft Lauderdale.
Education: Art Students League, New York City; Academy Julian, Paris; R.R. Gallerie Firenze, Florence, Italy; French Academy; Art Academy of Rome, 1912; National Academy of Design, 1916.
Exhibits: Jeans Studio, Adams, Massachusetts, 1929; Frequent exhibitor, Ainslie Galleries, Fifth Avenue, New York, 1920’s-1930’s; Allied Artist of America, May 1935; Spring Salon, The Salons of America Inc; Commisioned to paint the Great Atlantic and Pacific Fleets visit to New York Harbor in 1934, a gift from the Democratic Party of New York to President Franklin Roosevelt, 1935; Barbizon Plaza Art Gallery, New York City, in honor of the Worlds Fair, July-October 1939; The Parkway, Vero Beach, February 1939; Housekeeper’s Club of Coconut Grove, April-May 1939; Prince George Hotel, NYC, 1940.
Directory: Listed in the Ft. Lauderdale City Directory, 1944-45, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1963, 1966 as an artist with a studio at the Little Studio 716 E. Las Olas Blvd.

Brandien, Carl. The Hillsboro Light From Pompano Beach, Fla. 1951. To K with love, Carl. Oil on board, 5 by 7 inbches.

Brandien, Carl. The Hillsboro Light From Pompano Beach, Fla. 1951. To K with love, Carl. Oil on board, 5 by 7 inches.

 

 

 

 

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