As the River Bends

As the River Bends
Carolyn Bradley

Artist Biography
Acquisition Number: 2022.20
Medium: Watercolor on paper
Size: 19 1/2 x 23 1/2 in.
Date: n.d.
Credit: Thanks Ginny Smith. For the love of earth, art and horses!

Carolyn Bradley was an avid traveler and fluent in Spanish, which earned her a place as an educational ambassador with the U.S. State Department from 1946 - 1951. Her first state-sponsored trip was as a visiting professor at the University of Chile, the second was a three month tour of Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. In 1950 she took a part-time teaching position at the Centre d'Art in Haiti, and in 1951 she was a visiting professor at the University of Costa Rica. On all of these trips she taught and lectured almost every day, to audiences that ranged from university students to primary school children. In many places, art materials were scarce due to a lack of funds. Bradley was known to take students up into the hills to dig their own clay to use for paint pigment, as captured here in this work. She also brought many art supplies with her to donate to her students. She found plenty of time and inspiration to create her own art during these times, and returned to the U.S. with more than 60 paintings, as well as the nickname "the paintbrush ambassador."