Robert Brokl (born 1948) is an American visual artist and activist based in the Bay Area, known for expressive woodblock printmaking and painting that has focused on the figure, landscape and travel for subject matter.Shere, Charles. "'New Romanticism' Gains Credibility," The Oakland Tribune, March 11, 1986.Swift, Harriet. "Diversity is the theme of Oakland's artists," Oakland Tribune, May 1, 1990, p. C1–2.Walters, Sylvia Solochek. "The 85th Anniversary Revisited," California Society of Printmakers: One Hundred Years, 1913–2013, San Francisco: California Society of Printmakers, 2013.Abate, Tom. "Proposed Law for Gay Rights Moving Slowly," The Daily Californian, May 23, 1978. His visual language combines the influences of German Expressionism, Japanese woodblock printing and the Bay Area Figurative Movement with a loosely autobiographical, Romantic interest in representing authentic personal experience, inner states and nature.Van Proyen, Mark. "Glamour and Romanticism," Artweek, March 15, 1984.MacNaughton, Mary Davis. New California Printmaking, Claremont, CA: Lang Art Gallery, Scripps College, 1987.Kennelly, Marty. "New Romantics Offer Vision with a Dose of Reality," The Daily Review March 7, 1986, p. 15. Critics and curators characterize his style by its graphic line, expressive gestural brushwork, tactile surfaces and sensitivity to color, mood and light.McDonagh, Michael. "Immediate Concerns," Contemporary Romanticism, Hayward, CA: University Gallery, California State University, 1986.Jagger, Patti. "Beautiful Bums and a Return to Romanticism," Metier, Winter 1985.Jones, Harvey. "Introduction," Oakland's Artists '90., Oakland, CA: The Oakland Museum, 1990.
Brokl's work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), Tokyo Art Museum, Oakland Museum of California, International Biennial of Woodcut and Wood-Engraving (Banská Bystrica), San Jose Museum of Art and Monterey Museum of Art.Cohn, Terri. "A Legacy for the Future," Artweek, August 8, 1987.Randall, Laura. Really Like That Painting? Why Not Take It Home!, The New York Times, March 30, 2005, Sect. G, p. 16. Retrieved March 27, 2020.Banska Bystrica. Twelfth International Biennale of Woodcut and Wood-Engraving 1992. Slovak Republic: Banska Bystrica, State Gallery, 1992.The Oakland Museum. Oakland's Artists '90., Oakland, CA: The Oakland Museum, 1990.Johnson, Robert Flynn. Contemporary California Prints, Berkeley: CA: San Jose Museum of Art, University of California Davis, California Society of Printmakers, 1982.Monterey Museum of Art. "Currents: Robert Brokl," 2024. Retrieved February 10, 2025. His art belongs to public collections including the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts (FAMSF), the Library of Congress, Oakland Museum and Rhode Island School of Design Museum, among others.Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Robert Brokl," Collection. Retrieved March 27, 2020.Library of Congress. "Selected works from the California Society of Printmakers 100th anniversary," Collection. Retrieved March 27, 2020.Center for the Visual Arts. "Spotlight on Robert Brokl," CVA Magazine, Oakland, CA: Center for the Visual Arts, March/April 1987.Rhode Island School of Design Museum. "Robert Bokl, Full Moon, Aquatic Park, 1986," Collection. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
In addition to making art, Brokl has taught, curated shows, and been an activist in the Bay Area for several decades, focusing especially on gay rights and historic preservation in Oakland.Rauber, Paul. "The Case of the Languishing Landmark," Express, March 23, 1990, p.1, 13–20. 1982. He lives and works in North Oakland with his spouse, Alfred Crofts.Bealer, Cheryl. "Art and Activism," The Montclarion, June 18, 1993.
Early life and career Robert Brokl was born in 1948 in Marshfield, Wisconsin to Sylvester Brokl, a farmer and construction worker, and Ruth (Ware) Brokl, a factory worker and nurse's aide. His parents married at the beginning of World War II; after enlisting, his father saw action in the Pacific Theater for which he was decorated. Although interested in art since his youth, Brokl enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in 1967 as an English major; his studies were interrupted by his expulsion for antiwar movement activities. He moved to California in the early 1970s, where he met his future husband, Alfred Crofts, at a gay liberation meeting.The Advocate. "Painter-Activist in the Berkeley-Bloomsbury Traditions," The Advocate, November 17, 1978.
In 1974, Brokl returned to art, taking classes at Laney College in Oakland and exhibiting by 1976. He then studied art at University of California, Berkeley (BFA, 1979; MA, 1980; MFA, 1982), where he was influenced by the Bay Area Figurative Movement and faculty artists Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, Jay DeFeo, Karl Kasten, Sylvia Lark and Mary Lovelace O'Neal.Sadeghi, Andrea. "Twenty-nine Degrees," The Daily Californian, August 6–12, 1982, p.1, 7–8. 1982.Curtis, Cathy. "Young Artists Show Well in 'Works on Paper'," The Berkeley Gazette, February 26, 1982.Drolet, Monica. "Between serious and satirical: 'Viaggi' is a magical trip through pomp and politics," Los Medanos College Experience, November 22, 2002.Journal of the Print World, "Robert Brokl to be Artist-in-Residence," Spring, 2006, p. 17. From 1981–3, Brokl served as vice-president and president of the California Society of Printmakers (CSP) and helped organize exhibitions and catalogues, including "Contemporary California Prints" (1982) and "Cutting Edge" (1987), during a time of resurgent interest in printmaking.The Print Collector's Newsletter. Review, The Cutting Edge", September–October 1987, p. 141.
Brokl built a reputation in the 1980s for figurative and narrative printmaking and painting through group exhibitions at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery, Ruggiero Henis Gallery (New York), San Jose Museum of Art, Oakland Museum, FAMSF and The Haggin Museum, and international shows in Tokyo and Thailand and throughout Europe.Halula, Theresa (ed). Contemporary Romanticism, Hayward, CA: University Gallery, California State University, 1986. His first show in 1983 at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery run by Marian Parmenter began a longstanding exhibition history there that continued until the gallery's closing in 2021.<ref name="Baker01"Baker, Kenneth. "Artists at odds with SFMOMA over gallery," San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2001. Retrieved March 27, 2020.The Montclarion. "Activist and artist," The Montclarion, September 17, 1993, p. 32.SFMoMA Artists Gallery. Robert Brokl, Artists. Retrieved February 15, 2021. In later decades, Brokl has appeared in group shows at the National Printmaking Symposium (Drake University), Kala Institute, Triton Museum of Art and Kyoto City Museum, and featured exhibitions at the Oakland Museum, Fresno Art Museum, de Young Museum, and Thoreau Center for Sustainability.Nusbaum, Eliot. "Drake hosts 'Rose Bowl' of the Printmaking art", Des Moines Register, April 11, 1993, p. 51.Kyoto City Museum. The 17th International Impact Art Festival '96, Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto City Museum, 1996.
Work The representational style of Brokl's early work in the 1970s reflected his interest in recording and expressing his experience as a gay man, as well as the influence of California, and often depicted naturally lit people at leisure and on the beach. Prior to earning his MFA degree, he frequently drew critical attention for paintings and works on paper in juried annuals and group exhibitions, including notices from Bay Area critics Victoria Dalkey, Cathy Curtis and Thomas Albright and The Advocate for the rawness and "blunt strength"Albright, Thomas. "A Potpourri of Art That Should Be Judged Guilty," San Francisco Chronicle, November 5, 1980. of his figurative work and leisurely, off-guard nudes (e.g., Self-Portrait with Pink Sky and Al and Ludwig – Russian River, both 1980).Dalkey, Victoria. "Art Show at Cal Expo Draws Heaps of Praise for Variety, Liveliness," The Sacramento Bee, November 17, 1979.Curtis, Cathy. "Standouts at 'open' exhibit," The Berkeley Gazette, November 9, 1980.
Woodblock printmaking In the 1980s, Brokl added landscape and woodblock (woodcut) printmaking to his repertoire, producing work noted for its built-up surfaces and textures and feeling for color, mood, and especially, light, as in the large print Full Moon – Aquatic Park, 1984 (FAMSF Collection),Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Full Moon – Aquatic Park," Robert Brokl, Collection. Retrieved March 27, 2020. which intertwines forms of landscape, foliage, water and sky).Dunham, Judith. New Impressions: Recent Prints by Bay Area Artists, San Francisco, CA: World Print Gallery, 1984. He was strongly influenced by exposure to Asian art and the Japanese printmakers Hiroshige and Yoshitoshi; that influence is borne out by pictorial motifs (e.g., bridges, scrolls, birds and flora) and compositional strategies such as the stylized stacking of elements, which creates shallow—rather than perspectival—space in works such as Weeping Willow (1986) and Figures on a Bridge (After Hiroshige) (both 1987, FAMSF Collection).Stutzin, Leo. "Relief for Art Lovers," The Sacramento Bee, November 13, 1988.Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Weeping Willow," Robert Brokl, Collection. Retrieved March 27, 2020.Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Figures on a Bridge," Robert Brokl, Collection. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
Mary Davis MacNaughton and others describe Brokl's style as combining traditional Ukiyo-e subject matter and landscape views with the bold graphic line of German Expressionist woodcuts; his technique employs multiple blocks to build color and surface and exploits the grain of the wood for expressive purposes, often augmenting the effect with wire brushes.Brokl, Robert. "Why Woodblocks?" California Society of Printmakers News Brief, Summer 1982. Oakland Museum curator Harvey Jones writes that the resulting painterly prints (e.g., Willow Bridge, 1989, FAMSF CollectionFine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Willow Bridge," Robert Brokl, Collection. Retrieved March 27, 2020.) display "gestural effects and lively tactile surfaces more often associated with contemporary oil painting."San Francisco State University. The Cutting Edge: A Relief Print Exhibition by Members of the California Society of Printmakers, San Francisco CA: University Art Department Gallery, San Francisco State University, 1987.
Brokl's later printmaking—like his painting—explores travel, animals and pets, and art itself and often combines woodblock printing, drawing, collage, painting and stencils (e.g., 9 Roosters, 2004; Weller Frog and Albers Painting, 2011; or David, 1992).Gant, Michael S. "On the Etch: Printmakers show at WORKS displays wide range of tastes and techniques," San Jose Metro, January 21, 2004. Retrieved March 27, 2020.Eisenhart, Mary. "Don't miss: 'Nothing But Dogs and Cats'," San Francisco Chronicle, January 10, 2008. Retrieved March 27, 2020. India XIII (1996) offers a characteristic work in this vein, with a layered, gridded format combining expressive gesture and crudeness in its repeated tiger, rider and elephant images and delicacy in its flower, rabbit and abstract woodblock patterns created with Indian fabric printing blocks.Brokl, Robert. "'India XIII" California Printmaker, May 1998, p. 23.
Painting and drawing