Meet Charles Gulbrandsen
Charles Gulbrandsen
Fine Artist and Instructor
Classes
Fall Session
Tuesday’s 3:30pm – 6:30pm
Tuesday’s 11pm-1pm
Tuesday’s 3pm-6pm
Saturday’s 11:00am – 1:00pm
Charles graduated from the Cooper Union with distinction in 1985 as a painting major and soon began a career in art restoration. After many decades of in-painting the missing and damaged areas of thousands of paintings, he had to resolve many technical challenges, and in so doing, synthesized this experience into the development of his
own style.
Major Restorations include:
St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral, Café Des’ Artiste, The
Daugherty murals.
Major Commisssions include: “Serengeti,” “Hong Kong Harbor,” “Greenwhich Vistas.”
He was fortunate enough to participate in the restoration of the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal, which his grandfather, also Charles Gulbrandsen, painted in 1945. The younger Gulbrandsen continued to pursue his passion for painting large scale works throughout his career. The mature phase of his own painting style would surface in pieces like “Rising” 2016 in which techniques both old and new reveal a luminous nebulae of organic structure.
In 1913 my grandfather, Charles G. Gulbrandsen, began work, painting the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal. Then in 1945; he was chosen to lead the repainting of the ceiling; and this celestial mural continues to inspire travelers to this day. Following in my grandfather’s artistic footsteps, I received a full scholarship to The Cooper Union in New York City. While at Cooper Union, I was awarded the Vena T Carrol Prize of achievement in painting and The Bath Academy of Art Scholarship and studied abroad in England.
After graduating from The Cooper Union, I began my own career in art restoration and was fortunate enough to participate in the 1996 restoration of the Grand Central Terminal ceiling mural, excited to connect with and preserve the work of my grandfather. During this same period, I also established my own painting studio executing numerous commissions, including large-scale murals.
Presently, I continue to accept commissions, while I primarily concentrate on my own abstract work.