In December of 2021, Special Collections received a charming and unusual donation from Edward P. Bentley of Greenville, Michigan: a painting by Edith Bramhall, beloved Political Science professor at Colorado College from 1920 to 1946.

The painting, “Chickens,” was likely painted between 1946 and 1960; it has Bramhall’s address during that time, 116 East San Rafael, on the reverse side. It may have been a view from her home, with Pikes Peak in the background. That part of campus looks very different now, so we can’t be sure.

Robert Loevy’s Colorado College Reader (2012) contains two chapters on Bramhall, the first woman to make a career of teaching at CC. (Women served on the CC faculty before 1920, but none for longer than a few years). Bramhall is considered the founder of ” modern” Political Science at the college, and the department’s top prize for majors is named for her.

An undated document in the Archives (CC Information File Faculty – Bio – Bramhall, Edith) contains this anonymous anecdote: “She showed me some of her oil paintings of the region. Among them was a very good painting of Pikes Peak and the surrounding mountains, apparently done early in spring and early in the morning. It had a nice feeling of freshness about it. Pointing to it, Miss Bramhall recalled that she arose one morning and looked out at the mountains and decided that they would not look like that for long and that if she wanted to capture the right spring feeling she had better get to it at once. ‘So I just skipped classes,’ she said, ‘and I took my paints and things and went off to the hills to paint.'”

We thank Edward P. Bentley very much for this gift, including the specially-made frame. The painting is now part of the IDEA / Campus Collection and hangs in room 218, Tutt Library.