At the age of 16, Bromberg was chosen the winner of the prestigious George Bellows Award, a national art competition among high school students.
First prize of the George Bellows Award was a year's scholarship to Pratt Institute in New York City. Bromberg decided to stay in his hometown and, instead, accepted a full four-year working scholarship at the Cleveland School of Art.
In 1937, he moved to Colorado to study with much admired Boardman Robinson – artist, political cartoonist, illustrator, and muralist – at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. As well as being his student, Bromberg was chosen by Robinson to be his assistant - in particular to work on Robinson’s murals for the Department of Justice.
The following year, Bromberg was selected to be part of the Federal Arts Project’s WPA Easel Program. Soon after, the Section of Fine Arts awarded him a mural commission for the Tahlequah, Oklahoma Post Office (1938-1939). The Section of Fine Arts’ main function was to select high quality art to decorate public buildings in the form of murals; it was not a relief program, but awarded commissions competitively, based on artistic talent.
In 1939, Bromberg was a Winner of the 48-State Juried Mural Competition (Section of Fine Arts). His submission was a design for a mural in the Greybull, Wyoming Post office.
LIFE magazine reproduced a sketch of the mural and Edward Rowan, Director of the Section of Fine Arts wrote, “The work seems to us authentic in feeling, beautiful in painting quality, vital in design and distinctive in mood.”
Bromberg was invited to exhibit at “Art in America,” part of the 1939 World’s Fair. Other selected exhibits of Bromberg’s work that year included San Francisco, New York, Denver, Cleveland, Chicago, and Ottawa, as well as a traveling show, “Artists West of the Mississippi.”
In 1940, the Section of Fine Arts awarded Bromberg a third Post Office mural commission, this one in Geneva, Illinois called “Fish Fry.” That same year, he completed “Chuck Wagon Serenade,” the Greybull, Wyoming post office mural.
The Whitney Museum invited Bromberg to participate in the Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Painting (1940-1941).