Memories of My Dad |
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| I was not yet five when I was
separated from my father and there's still a whole lot of emotional
baggage despite the passage of some 65 years since. During the first five years after my parents' separation, I was able to visit my dad about once a year. Then my mother and I moved to California, and it was nine long years before I saw him again. Shortly after my nineteenth birthday I hopped a train to Boston, where my father lived with his new family. My half-sister Caroline was about two years old and our dad was of course devoted to her and her mother. I felt like an intruder, an outsider, so I left Boston for Columbia Univerity and a brief career as a model in New York City, following in my mother's footsteps since I lacked the talent to follow my father's. To my everlasting regret, I was never to see my dad again. |
 *My father, summer 1922, age 19 |
"Tom Selleck in the movie 'Lassiter'-- that's how I remember my father."
Much of the time in the early '30's he wasn't working or was working at home, so he was with me as much as my mother was. We were very close, and I remember sitting on a high stool next to his drawing table, watching enchanting images appear magically on sheets of paper. When my parents separated in 1935 it was a devastating blow. I don't think any of us ever fully recovered. Because of the long separations, I know very little about my father's "real" life. I've stitched together my own dim memories, plus the many things my mother told me of their early years in Greenwich Village plus what I've since learned from my half-sister (she was only sixteen when he died) and from some of his later friends, to create a biography of his life and career as well as the incredible story of the past misadventures and recent successes of this collection. |
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What I remember most about my dad is that he was very charming and charismatic with a jaunty walk. He was movie-star tall-dark-and-handsome, and my mother was tall and willowy.When they walked down the street together, heads turned. They made people feel good despite the hard times of The Depression. Tom Selleck in the movie "Lassiter"-- that's how I remember my father. I first learned of the existence of this collection about ten years ago, and when my half-sister released them to me, I was overjoyed -- for at last I could do something to honor my father's memory. My dream has been to achieve recognition for his unique talents, find good homes for his art work, donate some of his work to art museums, and establish an art scholarship in his memory. Joan Braithwaite Haller |
UPDATE #1:
In October of 1998, for the first time in more than 35 years,
Braithwaite's work was exhibited as the featured artist at Remarque Fine Art in Whitewater, Colorado.
Most recently (October 25 through November 5, 1999), his work was displayed
in a one-man show at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado.
UPDATE #2:
A perpetual art scholarship fund has now been endowed in my father's memory at Mesa State College in Colorado.
It is our hope that this web site will become a student project there and remain online for generations to come.
All proceeds from picture sales are donated to the scholarship fund.
UPDATE #3:
Braithwaite paintings have recently been acquired by The Mesa State College Foundation
and by The Western Colorado Center for the Arts.
UPDATE #4:
Our book is now a reality!
All this has resulted from contacts made through this web site.
THE POWER OF THE INTERNET IS TRULY AWESOME !
VISIT THESE OTHER PAGES:
From Attic to Barn to Garage
*The incredible history of the loss and rediscovery of these drawings and paintings.
Biography of T. R. Braithwaite (1902-1964)
*Student years in Chicago. The Great Depression in New York. Nine-to-Five in Boston.
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