Bonnie Bronson

(American, born 1940, died 1990)

Bonnie Bronson (1940-1990) was a celebrated Oregon-based painter and sculptor. Her artworks are abstract and minimal, often based on grids. They feature enamel on steel sculpture, welded and painted steel collages, painting. and carpet design.

Born in Portland, Bronson studied at the University of Kansas, University of Oregon, and graduated from the Portland Art Museum School (now PNCA, Pacific Northwest College of Art) by the age of 21. She and her husband, sculptor Lee Kelly, lived and worked on a former dairy farm in Oregon City, Northwestern Oregon. She died in a mountaineering accident at age 50. Since 1992, the Bonnie Bronson Fellowship honors a Pacific Northwest artist each year, with an emphasis on sculptors and women artists. In 2011, the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, organized a retrospective exhibition of Bronson's art.