Franz Diederich Brandt was born in in Pottawattamie, Iowa on Oct. 14, 1904. Brandt was the son of a photographer and began hand tinting his father's pictures at an early age.

He grew up in Boise, Idaho and by the late 1920s he was a commercial artist in Berkeley, California. During the 1930s he moved across the bay to San Francisco where he taught art in the public schools for 27 years. He died there on May 28, 1989.

Source:

AskArt.com

Edan Hughes, author of the book "Artists in California, 1786-1940"

California Arts & Architecture list, 1932; City Directory; Death Record.