Brooks entered Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, in 1923, but after two years of conventional study followed by study at the Dallas Art Institute, left for New York; from 1927 to 1930 he studied at the Art Students League under Kimon Nicolaides and Boardman Robinson. From 1936 through 1942 he designed and executed several murals for public buildings in New York State under the federal arts projects, among them the recently restored murals in the Marine Air Terminal, LaGuardia Airport, New York. It was in this period that he became acquainted with Jackson Polllock and Philip Guston. His army service during World War II was as an artist-correspondent, based in Cairo, which gave him experience of North Africa and the Middle East.
Returning to New York following the war, Brooks became part of the informal group of artists working in the expressive mode termed Abstract Expressionism. At this time he also began a long parallel career in teaching: Columbia University, New York, 1946-48; Pratt Institute, New York, 1948-55; visiting critic, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1955-60; artist in residence, American Academy in Rome, 1963; visiting critic, New College, Sarasota, Florida, 1965-67; Miami (Florida) Art Center, 1966; Queens College, City University of New York, 1966-69; visiting critic, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; visiting professor, Cooper Union, New York, 1975.
Brooks's first one-man exhibition was presented by the Peridot Galley, New York, in 1950; over the thirty-eight years since that time his work has been featured in a one-man exhibition almost annually, most frequently at New York galleries including Stable, Kootz, and Martha Jackson, but highlighted by retrospecitve exhibitions presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, toured 1963-64; the Dallas Museum of fine Arts, 1972; and the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, 1983.
Among Brooks's awards are a prize in the Carnegie Institute's International, Pittsburgh, 1952; first painting prize and Logan Medal, Art Institute of Chicago, 1957; purchase prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1962; Gold Medal, National Arts Club, New York, 1985. He was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1969; in 1973 he was elected to the Institute, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Brook is represented by the Gruenebaum Gallery, New York, and lives in East Hampton, New York.
