Bob Branaman in Big Sur, ca. 1960’s. Photograph by Wallace Berman. From the catalog of Venice: Now & Then, Aug. 5 - Sept. 3, 2017, Mike Kelley Gallery at Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA.
Bob passed away at about 7am on January 9, 2024. His legacy, love and friendship for so many of us is impossible to quantify. His incredible body of work is part of that story. We will always miss him and be grateful to have been able to learn from him.
Born in 1933, Bob was a poet, painter, and filmmaker who began his work during the Beat Generation, shortly after moving to San Francisco in 1959, joining fellow Wichita, Kansas transplants Michael McClure, Bruce Conner, and Charles Plymell. Branaman and other San Francisco artists of the late 1950s and early 1960s aligned in an exceptional convergence of creative, avant-garde bohemians, poets, artists and writers liberated by new experiences in thought, sexuality, and cultural expression. At Auerhahn Press, founded by Dave Haselwood, Branaman met Alan Ginsberg, and created silkscreen cover illustrations for local poets including Philp Whalen, John Wieners and Philip Lamantia. Branaman also created band posters for the San Francisco Oracle, and for the band he played with, The Gladstones, who played on the same bill in 1966 with Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. As a precursor to the underground Zap Comix movement of the late 1960s, Branaman created the comic “Robert Ronnie Branaman,” printed in 1963 by Charles Plymell, which was later destroyed in the thousands for its alleged obscenity. Branaman was deeply influenced by his studies in Tibetan meditation, spending time with the Dalai Lama and a month at Esalen in Big Sur with Batman Gallery founders Billy and Joan Jahrmarkt.
In a 2017 issue of ArtForum, Jennifer Piejko wrote:
Branaman cultivated a style of arranging words and images on film, canvas, and paper, and collaborated with William S. Burroughs and Ginsberg, among many others, though without reaching their level of renown. His early exhibitions at San Francisco’s legendary artist-run Batman Art Gallery and work with the Rat Bastard Protective Association uniquely positioned him to be both contributor to and chronicler of Beat history.
His work is held in the permanent collections of major institutions including the Museum of Art and the Anthology Film Archives, New York, the Oakland Museum of California, the Berkeley Film Archives, San Francisco Art Institute, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in conjunction with Harvard University, Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center, and the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art.
A memorial is being planned, probably for March at Beyond Baroque in Venice.
Bob Branaman in Big Sur, ca. 1960’s. Photograph by Wallace Berman. From the catalog of Venice: Now & Then, Aug. 5 - Sept. 3, 2017, Mike Kelley Gallery at Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA.
Bob passed away at about 7am on January 9, 2024. His legacy, love and friendship for so many of us is impossible to quantify. His incredible body of work is part of that story. We will always miss him and be grateful to have been able to learn from him.
Born in 1933, Bob was a poet, painter, and filmmaker who began his work during the Beat Generation, shortly after moving to San Francisco in 1959, joining fellow Wichita, Kansas transplants Michael McClure, Bruce Conner, and Charles Plymell. Branaman and other San Francisco artists of the late 1950s and early 1960s aligned in an exceptional convergence of creative, avant-garde bohemians, poets, artists and writers liberated by new experiences in thought, sexuality, and cultural expression. At Auerhahn Press, founded by Dave Haselwood, Branaman met Alan Ginsberg, and created silkscreen cover illustrations for local poets including Philp Whalen, John Wieners and Philip Lamantia. Branaman also created band posters for the San Francisco Oracle, and for the band he played with, The Gladstones, who played on the same bill in 1966 with Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. As a precursor to the underground Zap Comix movement of the late 1960s, Branaman created the comic “Robert Ronnie Branaman,” printed in 1963 by Charles Plymell, which was later destroyed in the thousands for its alleged obscenity. Branaman was deeply influenced by his studies in Tibetan meditation, spending time with the Dalai Lama and a month at Esalen in Big Sur with Batman Gallery founders Billy and Joan Jahrmarkt.
In a 2017 issue of ArtForum, Jennifer Piejko wrote:
Branaman cultivated a style of arranging words and images on film, canvas, and paper, and collaborated with William S. Burroughs and Ginsberg, among many others, though without reaching their level of renown. His early exhibitions at San Francisco’s legendary artist-run Batman Art Gallery and work with the Rat Bastard Protective Association uniquely positioned him to be both contributor to and chronicler of Beat history.
His work is held in the permanent collections of major institutions including the Museum of Art and the Anthology Film Archives, New York, the Oakland Museum of California, the Berkeley Film Archives, San Francisco Art Institute, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in conjunction with Harvard University, Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center, and the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art.
A memorial is being planned, probably for March at Beyond Baroque in Venice.
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