Bror Utter (Am.1913-1993) was born in Fort Worth. He studied in high school under Sallie Gillespie and afterward under Clinton Blair King. Between 1931 and 1936, Utter worked in his father’s lithograph plant while attending the Fort Worth School of Fine Arts where he was a student Wade Jolly. In the summer of 1940, he studied on scholarship at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.

He taught painting classes sponsored by the Fort Worth Art Association, in the art department of the Fort Worth Woman’s Club, and for the Fort Worth Junior League. About 1951, he became a fill-time and accomplished painter. For the First National Bank of Fort Worth, he executed a notable series of paintings depicting architectural landmarks in Fort Worth. Utter taught at Texas Wesleyan College, Fort Worth, in 1960 and also instructed at the Fort Worth Art Center. Alzheimer’s disease ended his painting career before he died in Fort Worth.

EXHIBITIONS
The Studios, Fort Worth (1940); Annual Fort Worth Local Artists Show (1940-42, 1943 honorable mention, 1946, 1947 honorable mention, 1948 prizes, 1949 prizes)Texas-Oklahoma General Exhibition (1941); Texas General Exhibition (1941, 1943 award, 1944-1947, 1948 award); Artists for Victory, Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts (1943 one-man, 1951, 1957 one-man); Six Texas Painters, Weyhe Galleries, New York (1944); University of Texas at Austin (1944); Collins Art Gallery, Fort Worth (1944); Annual Texas Print Exhibition, Dallas (1945 purchase prize); Southern States Art League Annual Exhibition (1945); Library of Congress, Washington, DC (1945); Corpus Christi Caller-Times Annual Exhibition (1946); Fort Worth Museum of Art (1946 and 1953 one-man); Fort Worth Public Library (1946 and 1961 one-man); Annual Texas Artists Circuit Exhibition (1948 prize, 1949, 1952, 1954);

Elisabet Ney Museum, Austin (1948 one-man, 1960); History of Fort Worth Art, Fort Worth Public Library (1948); Associated American Artists Galleries, New York (1948-1949); Laguna Gloria Art museum, Austin (1948 one-man); Southwestern Prints and Drawings Annual Exhibition, Dallas (1949, 1952 award); Texas Painting and Sculpture Annual Exhibition (1949, 1952 award, 1954-1955, 1956 award, 1958, 1962-1963); Brooklyn (New York) Museum (1950); Texas Watercolor Society (1950, 1951 prize, 1952-1959, 1961-1963); McMurry College, Abilene (1951 one-man); Texas Fine Arts Association Exhibition (1951-1952, 1954, 1956, 1957 purchase prize, 1958-1959); Texas Contemporary Artists, M. Knoedler & Company, New York (1952); Texas Wildcat Exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts (1952)

Betty McLean Gallery, Dallas (1952 one-man); Dallas Watercolor Society (1952-1954, 1956-1957, 1959, 1961); North Texas State College, Denton (1953); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1953); Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh (1955); D.D. Feldman Collection of Contemporary Texas Art, Dallas (1955, 1957); Denver Art Museum (1956-1958), Survey of Texas Painting, Dallas Museum of Arts (1957); Contemporary Texas Paintings, American Federation of Arts (1957) traveling exhibition); New Jersey Watercolor Society (1957); Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1957); New York Civic Center Gallery (1957)

Texas Women’s University, Denton (1957); Nye Gallery, Dallas (1957); Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio (1958 one-man); Dallas Museum of Contemporary Arts (158-1959); Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio (1958); The Iron Horse in Art, Fort Worth Art Center (1958, 1961 retrospective); Fifth Avenue Gallery, Fort Worth (1959-1960); Annual Exhibition of the State Fair of Texas, Dallas (1959 prize); Stables Gallery, Taos (1959); Texas Painting and Sculpture: The 20th Century, Owen Art Center Southern Methodist University, Dallas (1971 traveling exhibition); Bror Utter: Fifty Years of His Art, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth (1985); Old Jail Art Center, Albany (1986); Survey of Texas Artists 1890 -1990, Longview Museum and Arts Center (1991); Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas at Austin (1992); Fort Worth Gallery (one-man); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New Orleans Arts and Crafts Club; National Academy of Design, New York; Milwaukee Art Center; Brooklyn (New York) Art Museum.

Collections:
Texas Fine Arts Association, Austin
Dallas Museum of Art; Dallas Print Society
University of North Texas, Denton
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Pearl Brewery, San Antonio
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
Old Jail Art Center, Albany, Texas
Denver Art Museum

AFFILIATIONS
Allied Artists Club of Fort Worth
Fort Worth Art Association
Southern States Art League
Texas Fine Arts Association
Texas Watercolor Society

Submitted by Anne Kelly Lewis, ISA AM, Gallery Director & Fine Art Appraiser, David Dike Fine Art, LLC. Her source is Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas Before 1942, by John and Deborah Powers.

Bror Utter (American 1913-1993) was a Fort Worth painter, graphic artist, teacher and administrator.

Submitted by Stephanie Reeves, September 2007