Mary Ann Bransby

Mary Ann Bransby was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1920. She received a scholarship to attend the Kansas City Art Institute, where she studied metalsmithing and mastered watercolor painting under the direction of Thomas Hart Benton. During her last year at the Institute, Mary Ann married Eric James Bransby, a fellow student, and in 1943 gave birth to their daughter, Fredericka.

Mary Ann designed parts and the die forms for B-52 bombers while her husband served in the U.S. Army. After World War II, Mary Ann and her family moved to Colorado to resume her studies at Broadmoor Academy at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center under the instruction of Boardman Robinson.

In 1946 she attended Yale University. She later attended the University of Illinois in Urbana, studying ceramics and metalsmithing, and in 1965 she spent three years completing her bachelor's and master's degrees in fine arts at the University of Missouri in Kansas City (UMKC). In 1968 she was awarded the Tiffany Foundation Fellowship in silversmithing.

Mary Ann taught classes at Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas, and graduate-level classes at University of Missouri, Kansas City. During her time at University of Missouri, she established an interdisciplinary program involving the Art, Music and Dance Departments titled Choreographing the Object, which was exhibited throughout the Midwest and at the College Art Association's annual meeting in New York and aired on Good Morning America. In 1984, Mary Ann retired and returned to Colorado, where she continued to teach. She also organized two exhibiting and educational organizations, the Pikes Peak Watercolor Society (co-founder in 1987) and the Chromatic Edge.

Mary Ann Bransby died in 2011 in Colorado Springs.