Although Bronwen spent most of her life in Johannesburg, she acquired an interest in nature as a teenager, after having camped in the wilds of Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) in the late nineteen fifties. As a result of subsequent trips all over Southern Africa, this interest became an enduring passion.
On a month-long trip to the Okavango Delta in 1973, Bronwen “discovered” birds and the amazing diversity of the avifauna of the sub-continent. This new interest inspired her so much, that all she wanted to do, was to put paintbrush to paper to portray the birds she was seeing. Bronwen says it was a God-given gift, because in spite of never having had any form of art training, her paintings were soon selling in art galleries after only one year of doing very well at Artists’ Market at the Zoo Lake. Within 6 years she had risen to become one of the top bird artists in South Africa, exhibiting regularly in galleries in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg.
The demand for her work grew, until in 1988 she held her first solo exhibition in Sandown, which was sold out within 2 hours of its having opened. Her paintings hang in homes in many countries around the world, including those of the secretary of the Audubon Society in America, the vice chairman of General Motors in Michigan and the chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee in Sweden. Her carrier was closely followed by the buyer of art for First National Bank, who bought many of her work for the art collection of the bank and for his private collection.
The last fifteen years of her carrier, Bronwen exhibited regularly at international exhibitions at the Everard Read Gallery in Rosebank, the leading gallery in Johannesburg, if not South Africa, along with the best wildlife artists in the world, like David Shepherd and Raymond Ching.
Bronwen and her husband have since relocated to Wakkerstroom, where they run a small guest house for birders. It had been their dream to leave the big city once the children had left home, to live a country lifestyle.
Although Bronwen no longer exhibited her work in galleries once this move was made, she still did commissions until 2011.
