About Bill Braden

The typical response Bill Braden gives when praised about his art is, “I copy God’s good work”. This point of view about his own work might be a clue to his success: what draws people to his creations and what makes people trust him with the job of creating sometimes expensive, sometimes culturally sensitive work.

Whatever the reason, this is the artist that was selected from over 200 applicants to paint “The Best Beaches of Hawaii” for the City & County of Honolulu in 1990. Since his first commissioned oil painting in 1976 (by Bob Dixon, the navigator for the first Pan Am Clipper passenger plane to Hawaii), Bill has been called on for cultural projects that require a fine art human hand. In this age of computer science, digital, robotized, increasingly precise, accurate and perfect creations, the need for that organic, beyond logic sophistication that only art made by the tuned human mind and hand can create is perhaps appreciated now more than ever before. An example of this is the three and a half ton marble sculpture commissioned by the 300th Anniversary Committee of the Town of Harwich, Massachusetts done by Braden. Also the current fifty plus tons Trailmarker, being erected at Waimea, Oahu by order of the Kupuna of the area, is another case where computers and other modern technologies are obsolete, where Bill is called upon to use his creative mind.

Maybe the realistic look accompanied by distinct visible brushstrokes, is what is appealing enough to have had Bill’s work selected for the largest chain of galleries in his home State of Hawaii (Wyland Galleries in the last decade, Pictures Plus Stores today). Could it be the subtlety that comes from a world-class art education at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and Rome, Italy is what gets his work into the gift shops of the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Bishop Museum?

There are the superlatives. He was commissioned to paint the largest stretched canvas painting in the State when the then Hyatt, now Hilton Waikoloa, ordered a 14 feet high by 22 feet wide seamless oil painting. He also seems most humbled by the church commissions, Father Damien’s St. Philomena Church in Kalaupapa, and St. Pius X in Manoa (see right). To have been commissioned to design a crucifix for the latter church is what he considers the ultimate commission for a classically trained artist as himself.

Statistics: Born in1958 in Tokyo, Japan, of Japanese mother, Sonoyo, and American father of Irish ancestry, Bill Braden. He is a graduate of Kailua High School, Choate School post-graduate, etc… He has 2 brothers, 1 sister, and 1 son. He will soon be married to Jinny Darby Thayer, a much better person than him, praise the Lord!

Next painting: Official commissioned painting of Haleakala National Park.

April, 2007