Early life and career Frank Brangwyn was born in
Bruges, Belgium, where his father, William Curtis Brangwyn, moved after winning a competition organised by the Belgian Guild of St Thomas and St Luke to design a parish church. His forenames were registered as
Guillaume François. In Bruges, his father maintained a large workshop with several staff and worked on numerous civic projects as well as the parish church. William Curtis Brangwyn had been born in Buckinghamshire to a Welsh family and married Eleanor Griffiths, who was from
Brecon. In 1874, the family moved back to the United Kingdom where William Curtis Brangwyn established a successful design practice. Frank Brangwyn attended Westminster City School but often played truant to spend time in his father's workshop or drawing in the
South Kensington Museum. Through contacts made at the museum, among them
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, he obtained an apprenticeship with
William Morris for whom he worked first as a glazer before undertaking embroidery and wallpaper work. Soon Brangwyn was attracted by the light and the bright colours of these southern countries at a time when
Orientalism was becoming a favoured theme for many painters. He made many paintings and drawings, particularly of Spain, Egypt, Turkey and Morocco, which he visited in 1893. This lightened his palette, a change that initially did not find critical favour but helped establish his international reputation. In 1895 the French government purchased his painting
Market in Morocco. , where Brangwyn lived and worked. In 1895, the Parisian art dealer
Siegfried Bing commissioned Brangwyn to decorate the exterior of his Galerie L'Art Nouveau, and encouraged Brangwyn into new avenues: murals, tapestry, carpet designs, posters and designs for stained glass to be produced by
Louis Comfort Tiffany. In 1896 he illustrated a six-volume reprint of
Edward William Lane's translation of
One Thousand and One Nights. In 1917 he collaborated with the Japanese artist
Urushibara Mokuchu on a series of woodblock prints. In 1908 Brangwyn was commissioned to paint the apse of
St Aidan's Church, Leeds, but after it was realised that the air pollution would damage the paint, it was agreed he should work in glass mosaic. The mosaic (using Rust's vitreous mosaic) was completed in 1916. It covers the whole apse, and shows the life of
St Aidan. Other commissions included murals for the Great Hall of the
Worshipful Company of Skinners in London (1901–1912), for the
Royal Exchange, London (1906), the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition,
San Francisco, 1915 (now in the
Herbst Theatre, Veteran's Building Auditorium, San Francisco), a Lunette for
Cuyahoga County Courthouse,
Cleveland, Ohio (1911–1915), the
Manitoba Legislative Building,
Winnipeg (1918–1921), the Chapel,
Christ's Hospital School,
Horsham (1912–1923), and the
Missouri State Capitol,
Jefferson City (1915–1925). Along with
Diego Rivera and
Josep Maria Sert, he was chosen by
John D. Rockefeller Jr. to decorate the concourse of the
RCA Building in New York City (1930–34) with murals. A sequence of large murals on canvas (originally from
Horton House,
Northamptonshire) is held by the
Dunedin Public Art Gallery,
Dunedin, New Zealand and the
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in
Wellington. He was also chosen to decorate the first-class dining room of the
Canadian Pacific liner,
RMS Empress of Britain (1930–1931)].
World War One Brangwyn's
etching,
Canon Street Station, was presented in 1911 at the
Leeds Art Gallery. Brangwyn's pupil was George Graham (1881-1949), President of the Society of Yorkshire Artists. Although Brangwyn produced more than 80 poster designs during the First World War, he was not an official
war artist. He donated most of these poster designs to charities such as the
Red Cross, the Belgian and Allied Aid League, the
Royal National Institute for the Blind and ''L'Orphelinat des Armees
, an American charity supporting a French orphanage. In 1917 Brangwyn produced six lithographs under the title Making Sailors
and one entitled The Freedom of the Seas'' for the
Ministry of Information's ''Britain's Efforts and Ideals
portfolio of images which were exhibited in Britain and abroad and were also sold as prints to raise money for the war effort. Brangwyn was the Chairman of the English Committee for Diksmuide (Dixmude), near Ostend, a town that had been the site of heavy fighting throughout the war. To aid its reconstruction, Brangwyn donated a series of woodcuts to the town on the theme of the Tragedy of Dixmude''. During the war Brangwyn created a number of propaganda images highlighting atrocities committed against Belgium and the suffering endured by the country. However, after five of the panels were displayed in the Royal Gallery for approval by the Lords, the peers refused to accept them because they were "too colourful and lively" for the location. In 1934 the 16 panels were purchased by Swansea Council and are now housed in the
Brangwyn Hall,
Swansea.
Later life The rejection of the Panels by the Lords caused a lasting depression in Brangwyn. He became increasingly pessimistic and a hypochondriac and began disposing of his possessions during the 1930s. In 1936 he presented Bruges with over 400 works, now in the Arents House Museum. In return Bruges made him ''Citoyen d'Honneur de Bruges'', only the third time the award had been given. The two battle scenes rejected by the House of Lords were donated to the
National Museum Wales as part of a large group of gifts he made to the museum between 1929 and 1935. Brangwyn specified precisely where in the museum's Main Hall the works were to be hung and they remain there today. and was buried in
St Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green. In 1952 Clifford Musgrave estimated that Brangwyn had produced over 12,000 works. Brangwyn's mural commissions would cover over of canvas, he painted over 1,000 oils, over 660 mixed media works (
watercolours,
gouache), over 500
etchings, about 400
wood engravings and woodcuts, 280 lithographs, 40 architectural and interior designs, 230 designs for furniture, and 20 stained-glass panels and windows. == Interpretations ==