Adele Laure Brunet, born on August 10, 1871 in Austin, Texas, had early ambitions to be an artist. At the age of ten she studied watercolors with Janet Downie in Austin, and in her early teens she won a blue ribbon at the San Antonio Fair. Brunet later studied at the University of Texas and taught at Kenilworth Hall, a girls school in Austin.
In 1914 Brunet and her sister Josephine left Texas for Paris, but landed in New York because of the war in Europe. She remained in New York for 13 years finding work as a costume designer and illustrator. She eventually studied at the Art Students League and spent one summer at the Art Institute of Chicago. She studied portraiture in New York with Henry Rittenberg and started receiving commissions from Texas patrons.
In 1927 the artist moved to Dallas where she continued to sketch, paint and teach at artists camps. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Brunet spent her summer and fall months in New Mexico. Brunet also began to exhibit beginning with a one-person show in San Angelo in 1927 and numerous group shows including Southern States Art League, Museum of New Mexico-Santa Fe, Societe des Artistes Francais-Paris, Fort Worth Museum of Art and the Federation of Dallas Artists.
The artist died May 21, 1963 in Dallas.
Source: An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West by Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick
Adele Brunet studied at the University of Texas, the Art Students League, and the Art Institute of Chicago. She exhibited frequently in the Fort Worth Annual and the Dallas Allied Arts exhibitions, and taught at the Palo Duro School of Art in Canyon in the 1930s. One of her paintings, Christoval Road, depicts the road leading to the Texas Artists Camp at Christoval about 1927.
Another oil painting, Foot Bridge at Christoval, circa 1925, was of the same location. The Foot Bridge, sometimes called the Swinging Bridge, spanned the Concho over the swimming area and was just up stream from the dam. In earlier years many a young swimmer defied prohibitions of jumping from the bridge. This painting by Brunet depicts a wonderful time in the history of Christoval when it was the resort for families of Schleicher and Tom Green County farmers and ranchers who camped under the pecan trees and watched their children swim in the muddy Concho.
