John George Brown

Background

John George Brown was born on November 11, 1831 and was the son of Ann and John Brown, the latter a poor lawyer of Durham, England.

Education

The lad early developed a taste for art, doing a portrait of his mother and sister when he was nine years old. While learning the glass-cutting industry, he studied in his spare time with the well-known English artist Scott Lowdes. After leaving Newcastle-on-Tyne he continued the study of art in Scotland under William D. Scott.

His employer was a benevolent old gentleman by the name of William Owen. Sketches made for stained glass work and decorations so impressed Mr. Owen with Brown's artistic ability that he enabled him to study in New York with Thomas Cummings.

Career

As a boy he knew little of home life, being apprenticed at an early age to a glass-cutter in Newcastle-on-Tyne. There he remained an apprentice seven years, earning the sum of six dollars a week. Half of this amount was sent to his mother and the other half was used to live on; he received no financial aid from his father.

In 1853, when he was twenty-two years of age, he went to London and there supported himself by drawing and by the painting of portraits. One night he chanced to hear Henry Russell, then a well-known music hall singer, sing of the immigrants that came to the States. The youth was so impressed with the vivid pictures of American life as painted by the singer's words, that he came almost immediately to America, supporting himself in Brooklyn, New York, by his trade of glass-cutting.

Opening a studio in the Old Studio Building of New York City in 1860, he started painting street urchins, and in the beginning received for his pictures from five to thirty dollars apiece

He died at the age of eighty-two, a wealthy man, his paintings in the latter part of his life having yielded him an annual income of from forty to fifty thousand dollars, which he had invested to a large extent in New York real estate.

Achievements

• The first painting that brought Brown's work into national consideration called "His First Cigar, " this painting was exhibited in the Academy of Design of New York in 1860. Another painting, "Curling in Central Park, " won him a title of Academician. His achievements were recognized and he was appointed president of the National Academy. His other social achievement came in 1866 when he became one of the charter members of the Water-Color Society, of which he was also president from 1887 to 1904.

Views

Although his paintings never considered high art, but they were always true to nature and are an invaluable addition to the history of his generation.

His natural sympathy and kindness for all children was definitely demonstrated in the love he bore his own family of seven.

Quotations: His work was essentially American, cleverly executed, and intensely realistic. To quote his own words, "I do not paint poor boys solely because the public likes them and pays me for them, but because I love the boys myself, for I was once a poor lad. "

Wishing to more faithfully capture his subjects as they appeared in real life, Brown once said, "They will change their dress, as though to show the extent of their wardrobe. Being cautioned expressly on Saturday, and told to return in the same fustian jacket your boy will appear on Monday morning, if he appears at all, in a red woolen shirt. And they are constantly having their hair trimmed--perfect dandies!"

Membership

He was a member of the Water-Color Society.

Connections

In 1856 Brown married Mary Owen, the eldest daughter of William Owen. After her death he married her younger sister, Emma A. Owen, in 1871.

Father:

John Brown

Mother:

Ann Brown

1st wife:

Mary Owen

2nd wife:

Emma A. Owen

References

• American Painters