Glenn Bray

Glenn Bray
Born (1948-04-01) 1 April 1948 (age 78)
OccupationsArt collector, editor

Glenn Bray (born 1948) is an American private collector of comic book art and memorabilia, and the editor of multiple books about comic book and modern art, including The Original Art of Basil Wolverton: From the Collection of Glenn Bray (2007) and The Blighted Eye: Original Comic Art from the Glenn Bray Collection. Bray started collecting comics, original art, toys and posters in the 1970s, amassing one of the largest private collections of comic art by Mad magazine artist Basil Wolverton over the following decades. Bray’s comic art collection has thousands of pieces, including art from Mad magazine artist Harvey Kurtzman, George Herriman (known for the Krazy Kat comic strip), Disney cartoonist Carl Barks, and Savage Pencil.

Early life and education

Bray grew up in California's San Fernando Valley. Bray's interest in comic book art started in the 1950s when he was 9 years old, and he saw Basil Wolverton's art in Mad magazine. As a teen, Bray started working in his family’s hardware store and began collecting comics, original art, toys and posters.

Career and comic art collection

Bray purchased his first original piece of art, a drawing by Wolverton, in 1965 at age 17 for $10, and years later he purchased six pages of original art Wolverton made for a story in Mad magazine. Bray's collection of art from Mad is primarily from the comic book editions published under editor Harvey Kurtzman. His collection developed through the 1970s when he purchased original art auctioned by Mad's former publisher, William Gaines. His collection includes original comic art from Mad magazine artists Harvey Kurtzman and Basil Wolverton, underground cartoonists Robert Williams, Robert Crumb, Gary Panter, and Savage Pencil, alternative comic artists Daniel Clowes, George Herriman, and Carl Barks.

In 1971, Bray commissioned the first oil painting from Carl Barks; entitled A Tall Ship and a Star to Steer Her By, the painting featured Donald Duck.

Pieces from Bray’s comic art collection were included in the 2005 “Masters of American Comics” exhibitions at the Los Angeles Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Bray and his wife Lena Zwalve also collect art work by Polish modernist painter and sculptor Stanislav Szukalski. Bray collaborated with and published several books with Szukalski. In 2000 Bray, who is also the executor of Szukalski’s estate, helped organize a retrospective of Szukalski’s work called “Struggle: The Art of Stanislav Szukalski,” hosted at the Laguna Art Museum and sponsored by actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The book Struggle: The Art of Szukalski, edited by Bray and Lena Zwalve, was released the same year. Bray’s filmed interviews with Szukalski in the 1980s were included in the 2018 Netflix documentary, Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski.

As of 2008, Bray held he largest private collection of art by Wolverton, with over 400 pieces. In 2014, Bray’s comic art collection included “hundreds of thousands of items.”

Publications

Bray edited and co-edited multiple books about comic art, including The Original Art of Basil Wolverton (2007) and Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes in 2008.

In 2014, Bray co-edited The Blighted Eye: Original Comic Art from the Glenn Bray Collection, featuring art by Harvey Kurtzman, Robert Crumb, Charles Addams, Peter Pontiac, and others.

Bray and comics scholar Frank M. Young co-edited To Laugh That We May Not Weep: The Life and Times of Art Young, published in 2017. The book was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2018.

Select publications

Personal life

Bray lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife Lena Zwalve, a Dutch cartoonist. He retired and closed his family’s hardware store in 2010.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Tonguette, Peter (13 May 2018). "Crazy about MAD". Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Appleford, Steve (28 March 2014). "Glenn Bray brings his 'Blighted Eye' to collecting comic art". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  3. 1 2 Heller, Steven (24 February 2008). "Pretty Ugly". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 Bray, Glenn (2007). The Original Art of Basil Wolverton: From the Collection of Glenn Bray. Last Gasp. p. 271. ISBN 9780867196870.
  5. 1 2 3 Jennings, Dana (16 May 2014). "Mirror images, from real life or fun house". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  6. 1 2 3 Bray, Glenn, ed. (2014). The Blighted Eye: Original Comic Art from the Glenn Bray Collection. Fantagraphics Books. p. 407. ISBN 9781606996959.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Harvey, Doug (14 May 2008). "Glenn Bray". LA Weekly. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  8. 1 2 Graham, Jordan (24 August 2014). "Quite a collection". Orange County Register. The piece fits well with what Bray's home has become: a museum to house the 66-year-old's lifetime collection of comics, comic books, postcards, statues, toys, movie posters and any other absurd, macabre, sexual and satirical item that he finds offbeat, interesting and affordable. That collection now comprises hundreds of thousands of items, some on display, some tucked away. And he's happy to share what he's found with others.
  9. 1 2 Chun, Alex (4 October 2007). "Just mad about Basil Wolverton". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  10. 1 2 3 Rosenkranz, Patrick (11 June 2014). "Here's the thing about collectors". The Comics Journal. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  11. ↑ Andrae, Thomas (2006). Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book, Unmasking the Myth of Modernity. University Press of Mississippi/Jackson. p. 274. ISBN 1-57806-858-4.
  12. ↑ Letran, Vivian (11 November 2000). "Form and Fame of a 'Forgotten Genius'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  13. 1 2 3 Kinsella, Eileen (20 December 2018). "Why Leonardo DiCaprio and His Father Produced a New Netflix Film About an Obscure Polish Artist". Artnet. Retrieved 18 June 2024.
  14. 1 2 Stanislaw Szukalski (2000). Glenn Bray; Lena Zwalve (eds.). Struggle: The Art of Szukalski (2nd ed.). Last Gasp. ISBN 0867194790.
  15. ↑ Han, Karen (26 December 2018). "'Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski' Review: A Sharp Look at a Tangled Legacy". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 June 2024.
  16. 1 2 "Daniel Clowes, Krazy Kat, and Rory Hayes: New Books on Comics Masters". PRINT. 6 June 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  17. 1 2 Dan Nadel, Glenn Bray, ed. (2008). Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes. Fantagraphics Books. p. 143. ISBN 978-1560979234.
  18. 1 2 Tisserand, Michael (21 November 2017). "'To Laugh That We May Not Weep': Work of master cartoonist Art Young still resonates". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  19. ↑ Brown, Tracy (26 April 2018). "'My Favorite Thing Is Monsters' and 'Monstress' lead 2018 Eisner Awards nominations". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  20. ↑ Bray, Glenn; Hayes, Rory; Morgan, Harry; Nadel, Dan (2013). Nounours en Enfer. Ed. Stara. ISBN 978-2-9528164-4-1.
  21. ↑ Frank Young, Glenn Bray, ed. (2017). To Laugh That We May Not Weep: The Life and Times of Art Young. Fantagraphics Books. p. 381. ISBN 9781606999943.
  22. ↑ Szukalski, Stanislav (2019). Glenn Bray, Lena Zwalve (ed.). Behold!!! the Protong: Extracts from the 39 Volumes of My Science "Zermatism," Based on New Interpretations of Petroglyphic Communications, in which Will be Revealed the Most Precedent-shattering and Up-turning of All Notions on Our Origins. Including Samplings from Anthropolitical Motivations, the Deluged Gods, and Listen to These Stones. Last Gasp of San Francisco. p. 160. ISBN 9780867198768.
  23. ↑ Young, Art (2020). Steven Heller, Glenn Bray (ed.). Art Young's Inferno : Original Art Edition. Fantagraphics. ISBN 978-1683962809.
  24. ↑ Szukalski, Stanislav (2020). Glenn Bray, Lena Zwalve (ed.). Inner Portraits (3rd ed.). Last Gasp. ISBN 978-0867198799.