Guido Peter Brink was born in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1913, to a German father and an Italian mother. He came to New York as a teenager to work at A.L. Brink Studios, his uncle’s stained-glass studio. At the time A.L Studio was creating stained glass for the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. and other landmark buildings across the country.

Brink returned to Germany after three years in the United States. He attended the State Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf where he studied under Maximillian Clarenbach.

Brink recalls his experience as a young art student. Compelled along with other art students, to view the 1937 exhibition of Degenerate Art, organized at the Archaeological Institute of Munich. Contrary to Hitler’s intentions, the young artists were excited by the so-called degenerate art. And would in time develop new directions in their own work inspired by the modern art of the condemned artists.

He was drafted into the German Army upon graduation and sent to Russia, where he participated in several battles including the Battle of Stalingrad.

In 1952 Brink moved to New York City from Europe with his wife Ello. The couple came to Milwaukee in 1953 when Brink was hired to work as a stained-glass window artist for Conrad Schmitt Studios. In  1953 the Brinks settled in Milwaukee where Ello worked as an architectural critic for The Milwaukee Journal  and Guido became a faculty member at the Layton School of Art, where he remained until its closing in 1974. Guido Brink was one of 7 faculty members in 1974, from Layton, to found Milwaukee School of the Arts later to become the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD). Brink was Milwaukee School of the Arts’ first President.

Works

Brink’s work is featured in a number of national and international collections including, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University; Marquette University, Milwaukee; Center for the Humanities, Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois; and University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Madison, and Whitewater.