John Whitton Bria completed his earliest documented work before the age of three when he undertook a surprise decoration of the walls of his Grandmother’s bedroom, moving on to the gray kitchen door and displaying a bold use of green enamel. His grandmother, the author Mary Ormsbee Whitton, marked the event with a poem, and young Johnny, discovering there was some acclaim to be found in painting, continued his career.
At The Taft School, he studied with Mark W. Potter, the most influential of all his teachers, and won the Art Prize. In 1973, he graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in Fine Arts, then completed his formal study with Robert Brackman at the Art Students League in New York, in 1975, and in the past few years, has refreshed his knowledge of figurative painting.
From his early experiments in abstraction, Mr. Bria's work evolved to painterly realism in which he uses the color, tone and texture of oil paint to develop the convincing form of his subject, creating line and contour with opposing and parallel brushstrokes.
The high peaks of the Adirondacks, the crags of the Shawangunks, his house and gardens, a Fancher Road pond, the farms of Thomas Mills, Pennsylvania, and a secluded Connecticut cove provide material for a lifetime of work, which includes still lifes, family portraits and self-portraits.
During twenty years of community service, Mr. Bria spent time as a Pound Ridge volunteer firefighter and EMT, was elected to public office, serving two terms on the Pound Ridge Town Board, was President of the Pound Ridge Tennis Club, was the first President of the Pound Ridge Library Foundation, was a Director of the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy and recently accepted an appointment to the Pound Ridge Planning Board.
He lives with his beautiful wife Kris in an old family home, Stone Steps, and when not at his easel, Mr. Bria may be found in his garden.
