Theodore Brenson

Art Brokerage: Theodore Brenson Latvian-American Artist: b. 1893-1959. Theodore Brenson (1893-1959) was a Latvian-American painter, graphic artist, and educator. He died September 21, 1959 while working at MacDowell of a heart attack. Brenson was a professor of art emeritus of Douglass College in Rutgers, The State University. Brenson was chairman of the Douglass Art Department from 1954 until his retirement in June 1959. He previously was a member of the faculty of Manhattan College, Cummington School of the Arts in Massachusetts, and the College of Wooster. Born in Riga, Latvia in 1893, Brenson studied at the Art School of the City of Riga, the Imperial Academy of Beaux-Arts, St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Rome and Paris. One of 18 artists and the first American abstract artist named for the Prix de la Critique in Paris in 1957, he was awarded the Channing Hare Award of the Society of Four Arts in 1955. He also had been honored by the French Government with the Offcier d'Academie. Author of the proposal for the First International UNESCO Conference of Artists, which was held in Venice in 1952, Brenson had served on several UNESCO committees, as chairman of visual arts for the Institute of International Education program of international art, on the executive board of the National Student Association, and has held membership and organizational posts in the Society of American Graphic Abstract Artists, Artists Equity Association, American Abstract Artists, Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, American Association of University Professors, and the College Art Association. Listings wanted.