Shawna told me early this morning that Claudio Bravo had died. I still remember the day she brought home the Rizzoli book on Bravo from a local bookstore - I was over the moon. It's hard to describe what exactly this meant pre-internet time when it was hard to get information on a particular contemporary artist. Occasionally Bravo would show up in an art magazine but my only other access at that time was the University of Alberta library. In their holdings they had a catalogue of his first show at Marlborough Gallery in 1981.
At the time realism was not 'in' and the stuff Bravo was doing was high focus and his subject matter must have seemed odd. He really was an example of an artist who followed his own path. He was guided by art of the past rather than the fashion of the time and was a huge inspiration for me. I was lucky enough to finally see some of his work in person when I went to Marlborough Gallery in 2008. The paintings were subtle and quietly evocative, just as the reproductions I'd been so thrilled to find nearly thirty years before.
To view more of Bravo's images, this is a treasure trove. Claudio Bravo's site, here.
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