GWENDOLYN HARRIS BRANSTETTER is a native of South Texas, raised on a ranch in the ranching country of Live Oak County, Texas. After graduating from High School in Three Rivers, one of her first jobs was teaching school in a one room school house in the community of Mountain View. There she taught the three "r's" to the children of those ranchers. Gwen rode her grey mare, Gracy, from the ranch to the school house and back every day.

Her first hand knowledge of western lifestyle is realistically depicted in her art. This background is also evident in her paintings of Texas Wildlife done in their natural habitat, and in her rendition of the ever popular Texas Bluebonnet scenes. She began painting as a child, self-taught and working only in watercolors. As a teenager, a friend encouraged and helped her do one oil painting. Again she went through a long period of self-taught training, this time in oils. She later studied commercial art in college, and fine art under private instruction. Today she works in both watercolors and oils.

Exhibits include such important invitational shows as the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame at Fort Worth, Texas, annually in the Western Art Show sponsored by the Alamo Kiwanis Club of San Antonio, The First Atlanta Art Show, Augusta, Georgia; and in many other shows over the United States, on television and on a European tour sponsored by the Center of Studies and International Cultural Exchange in Italy.

Awards have been numerous. Her works hang in the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute, Waco, TX and in many distinguished private collections, including President and Mrs. Bush, former Texas Governors John Connally and Dolph Briscoe and their families, famed heart specialist Dr. Denton Cooley, a United States Congressman, and many others.

Mrs. Branstetter is named in Who's Who of American Art, by Bowker Publishers of New York, New York; in Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who in the South and Southwest, by Marquis of Chicago, and Two Thousand Women of Achievement, by Kay Publishers of England.

Several of her works have now been published in four-color lithograph reproduction in Limited Editions and are available in many fine galleries. Her original oils, watercolor, and reproductions are available in her studio.