Hoose Library of Philosophy: History, Collections, Art & Architecture and Digital Humanities Projects and Resources: THE BRUTON SISTERS: FAMOUS ARTISTS REDISCOVERED AT USC

Click the link to access a video recording and a written transcript of a 1964 oral history interview conducted by Lewis Ferbraché with Helen and Margaret Bruton for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) Museum just finished a year-long exhibit entitled "California Modernist Women: Groundbreaking Creativity". 

The exhibit focused on the role California's female artists played in the modern art world during the mid-20th century. The period encompassing the 1930's, '40's, and '50's was fertile ground for the birth of new styles and techniques that advances in technology allowed, as well as a reinvigorated interest in handmade crafts. Helen, Margaret, and Esther Bruton were featured in the exhibit, as well as many other artists demonstrating multidisciplinary skills. 

Public Art & Architecture from Around the World blogpost

See the links below for more resources on mosaics and murals:

Roman Mosaics in the J. Paul Getty Museum

Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles

Mosaic L.A. Self-Guided Tour: A Collaboration Between the L.A. Conservancy and the J. Paul Getty Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Society of American Mosaic Artists

KCET Arts and Culture

Gladding McBean is a major terra-cotta manufacturer. They have been in business for over 140 years and specialize in the combination of "old-world craftmanship" melded with the use of "new technology."

Helen Bruton began working for Gladding McBean's Glendale plant upon her move to Los Angeles in 1929. Her work for the company included completing the tile mosaics found in the Hoose Library.  She was the only female tile draftsperson employed there, out of 25!

Visit the Gladding, McBean website to learn more about their history.

Sections of Esther Bruton’s dazzling 1933 mural for the Cirque Room in San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel. The mural is still intact today. Esther took the lead on this project, with collaboration from her sisters. Photos courtesy https://brutonsisters.blogspot.com.

Today’s Alameda Treasure – The Bruton Houses, Part 2

by Steve Gorman, May 11, 2023

Esther poses with her work.

Artist Helen Bruton designed 20 of the 22 mosaic tiles found lining the walls of the Hoose Library. Each tile depicts a different philosopher. Helen and her sister gave this interview in 1975 describing the process: 

Click here to view the video

Watch from 11:00 to 14:00 to hear Helen speak about her work on the mosaics.

Sisters in Art uses vibrant color photographs to tell the story of three sisters who pioneered the modern art movement in California through the 1920's and '30's. Margaret, Esther, and Helen Bruton attended elite art schools in New York and Paris and went on to make a significant impact on art during this period. Associating with the likes of Frieda Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Henri Matisse, Margaret specialized in oil paintings and watercolors, Esther focused on etchings and murals, and Helen found her passion working in tiled mosaics.

Though the sisters were private and did not invite a lot of press or attention on their work throughout the years, author Wendy Van Wyck Good explores their story and how it has found renewed interest in the 21st century.

This book is available in e-book format through USC Libraries: Click Here

Explore the Fall 2023 Hoose Library of Philosophy Digital Exhibit on the Bruton Sisters!

A companion physical exhibit was in the exhibit case outside the Library throughout Fall 2023.

Stop by the MHP 2nd Floor Library Landing today!

Image source

Helen Bruton's mosaic, Sculpture and Dancing, was installed at the Old Art Gallery at UC Berkley in 1936.

Below, a preliminary drawing of the mosaic, the mosaic in progress on Helen Bruton's studio floor, and Helen working on the mosaic.

The Peacemakers, a collaboration of all three Bruton sisters, debuted in February 1939 at San Francisco's Golden Gate International Exposition.

The sisters worked 9:00-5:00 Monday-Saturday for 9 months to complete the 270 hand-carved 4x8-foot panels, a combined total of 8,000 square feet!

Top: an early watercolor of the mural

Middle: a promotional postcard featuring the finished work.

Bottom: The Bruton Sisters and an assistant with a finished panel from The Peacemakers.

The Main Reading Room of the Hoose Library of Philosophy contains 22 tile mosaics depicting various philosophers. Dr. Ralph Tyler Flewelling, director of the School of Philosophy, chose the "subject matter and inscriptions" for the tiles. The mosaics serve to show how philosophical ideas have evolved from ancient Greek thought to the 19th century. 

Source

Mosaics in the Library:

South Wall: Buddha, Confucius, Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Augustine

North Wall: Albertus Magnus, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Newton, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, Emerson

The aim of the Hoose Library mosaics was to depict the succession of philosophical ideas from Greeks through the nineteenth century. Buddha and Confucius are included "as important in the philosophical ideas of a great portion of the human race." 

Each mosaic has a caption incorporated into the design.

Explore the mosaic captions:  Click Here

Wendy Van Wyck Good is an archivist, librarian, and the author of Sisters in Art: The Biography of Margaret, Esther, and Helen Bruton (2021). She specializes in women's history and has been the foremost researcher on the Bruton sisters. 

Good recently curated a collection for the Monterey Museum of Art entitled The Bruton Sisters: Modernism in the Making. She provided a guided tour of the exhibit in June 2023, discussing the "unique techniques and innovative approach to materials" that the Bruton Sisters employed in their work.

Visit Wendy's Instagram page and more information about her work: instagram.com/wendyvgood/

The Bruton Sisters lived in the same neighborhood in San Francisco as Kahlo and Rivera in the 1930s.  Margaret drew this portrait of Frida Kahlo during that time, which she titled "Frieda Rivera."

"Helen at Sargent House Studio" by Margaret Bruton, c.1920