Obituary: 'Mr Wonderful' Byron Bradley was quiet giant on state's art scene

An authoritative account of Grand Marais' rise as a North Shore artist colony mentions the flamboyant Birney Quick about three times as much as his wingman, the more retiring Byron Bradley.

But Bradley's daughter, Sarah Métis, is convinced that, but for her father, the Grand Marais Art Colony would not have lasted. If he had not been around when what is now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) closed the art colony in the 1950s, she said, "that would have been the end of it. He had excellent business sense."

Bradley, 93, of Grand Marais, died of heart failure on June 5. An artist, teacher, mentor and entrepreneur, his influence on Minnesota's art scene was not confined solely to Grand Marais.

The art gallery he co-founded with Robert Kilbride, called the Kilbride-Bradley, was open from 1951 to 1968 in downtown Minneapolis and was something of a rarity in the Twin Cities in the early years, said his widow, Emma, herself a graphic designer.

In the 1950s, the gallery was mentioned in a Time magazine treatment of Midwest culture and featured in a Life magazine photo spread.

"There were probably one or two galleries when he and Bob started theirs," Emma Bradley said.

Born in Anoka and raised in Minneapolis, Bradley graduated from the Minneapolis School of Art (now MCAD) in 1949, studied in Paris, and taught drawing and painting at his alma mater and its Grand Marais summer school in the late '50s. He also taught at the Minnetonka Art Center from 1955 to 1968.

Each man's strengths together helped create the Grand Marais we know today, according to Colleen Sheehy, executive director of Public Art St. Paul and author of a Minnesota History article on the artist's colony.

Bradley also owned and managed K.B. Art Materials, a south Minneapolis artists' supply store, from 1968 until the mid-1990s.

All of those roles meant that he played a crucial part in the formation of Minnesota artists over several decades, Métis said. But he never sought attention, she added.

"He was personable, but an introvert," she said. "Birney and Kilbride were the flamboyant ones, and my dad was the level head behind everything."

Emma Bradley said she often summed up her husband's personality after a 53-year marriage as "never the one to start a conversation." She added that he also "never said an unkind word about anyone" and "had remarkable insight into other people."

"Friends used to call him 'Mr. Wonderful' " for that very quality, she said.

In addition to his wife and daughter Sarah, both of Grand Marais, he is survived by daughter Lydia of Minneapolis and a brother, Jack, of Burnsville.

A celebration of Bradley's life has been held.