PBS features 100-year-old MEB mural artist

11/4/2016 Christina Oehler

At 100 years old, artist and muralist Eric Bransby is far from slowing down.

Written by Christina Oehler

At 100 years old, artist and muralist Eric Bransby is far from slowing down. With PBS having premiered a biographical documentary of his life in October 2016 and the commission of two more murals for him to paint, Bransby is still hard at work making history in art world. 
At the University of Illinois, the Mechanical Engineering Building’s center entryway from Green Street contains two important Bransby murals hanging on opposite walls. Intricate and abstract, they reflect the fundamentals of mechanical engineering through art. Though perhaps overlooked in everyday routine in MechSE, these murals are an important part of Bransby’s story—one that PBS film director Jay Kriss shared with the world in his new film “TK,” which first aired in October. 
In 1951, the University of Illinois commissioned Bransby to help reform the perception of the MEB through artwork, an undertaking that also fulfilled his graduate thesis requirement for his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University. For the next two years, Bransby worked on his murals at MEB, inspired that this very academic and technical establishment could still express creativity and charisma through his designs. 
“There was this deep, intrinsic, ‘I want to tell a story’ type of thing,” said Kriss. “And so that’s what he did. Bransby just fell in love with the idea of the mural.”
The murals depict their own story: sketch-style outlines of anatomical figures at work on various machinery, apparent mathematic equations, and bold geometric figures. Both murals appear multi-layered, an effect of Bransby’s technique of layering the water-based tempera paint on some parts of the wall and not on others.
Now 65 years later, as MEB is prepared for a building-wide renovation, Bransby’s historic paintings are not forgotten, and the walls holding the murals will be preserved intact.  
At 100 years old, artist and muralist Eric Bransby is far from slowing down. With PBS having premiered a biographical documentary of his life in October 2016 and the commission of two more murals for him to paint, Bransby is still hard at work making history in art world. 
 
At the University of Illinois, the Mechanical Engineering Building’s center entryway from Green Street contains two important Bransby murals hanging on opposite walls. Intricate and abstract, they reflect the fundamentals of mechanical engineering through art. Though perhaps overlooked in everyday routine in MechSE, these murals are an important part of Bransby’s story—one that PBS film director Jay Kriss shared with the world in his new film “A Last Mural,” which first aired in October. 
 
In 1951, the University of Illinois commissioned Bransby to help reform the perception of the MEB through artwork, an undertaking that also fulfilled his graduate thesis requirement for his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University. For the next two years, Bransby worked on his murals at MEB, inspired that this very academic and technical establishment could still express creativity and charisma through his designs. 
 
“There was this deep, intrinsic, ‘I want to tell a story’ type of thing,” said Kriss. “And so that’s what he did. Bransby just fell in love with the idea of the mural.”
 
The murals depict their own story: sketch-style outlines of anatomical figures at work on various machinery, apparent mathematic equations, and bold geometric figures. Both murals appear multi-layered, an effect of Bransby’s technique of layering the water-based tempera paint on some parts of the wall and not on others.
 
Now 65 years later, as MEB is prepared for a building-wide renovation, Bransby’s historic paintings are not forgotten, and the walls holding the murals will be preserved intact.  
 
 

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This story was published November 4, 2016.