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[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Widely acclaimed painter and Greensboro native, Warren Brandt, earned his MFA in 1953 from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) while it was still Woman\u2019s College. Brandt also studied in St. Louis with Guston and Beckman, and in New York City with Kuniyoshi. His longtime friend, fellow artist, and Professor Emeritus of UNCG, Wally Barker, is also represented in the Weaver Collection. In New York, Brandt established close ties with the leading Abstract Expressionist painters. During the 1960s, Brandt made the transition from abstraction back to figurative painting. His representational work included figures, still lifes, and interiors. Like his great influence, Matisse, he managed to be abstract and representational simultaneously, finding visual rhythms and opulent colors that matched his own passions. Floral Still Life is an example of this combination of spirit and sensual animation. A house-warming gift from Brandt to Kay Stern and her husband, Ms. Stern later generously gifted this work to the Weaver Collection. In a newspaper interview with Brandt on behalf of \u201cFriends of the Weatherspoon Guild\u201d in March of 1974, Ms Stern wrote, \u201cThinking of the artist, the man, and his life style, one is convinced that Warren Brandt has distilled what is important to him in life and in art \u2013 his family, lovely objects, a quiet life, intimate genre. He paints it all with love and gusto.\u201d[\/vc_column_text]