A talented and successful painter, who settled in Sonoita, Arizona, Duane was raised in Virginia, Minnesota, Iron Range country, where one of his early paintings was a commissioned mural depicting the history of the mining industry of that area. He took the $3000. he earned from that project and went to New York City, where he did not achieve the quick success he expected but won a poster contest of the Museum of Modern Art.

Later he served in the Air Force and started a comic strip called "Cokey" for the base newspaper, and it was eventually syndicated. Following his discharge, he stayed with commercial art for awhile and then after moving to Tucson, Arizona, he became interested in painting the western scenes that subsequently made him famous. He won the 1997 Prix de West Purchase and Buyers' Choice Award at the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

As a personality, Bryers is highly social and loves to make people laugh, both in conversation and in his painting. In Tucson, he is part of a painting group called the Tucson Seven which includes Don Crowley and Harley Brown, and all share the common background of commercial art.

Source:
Art of the West 12/2002
Peggy and Harold Samuels, Contemporary Western Artists

Added note:
Duane Bryers died on Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at his home in Tucson, just a month shy of his 101st birthday.

Source:
Arizona Daily Star, June 1, 2012