John George Brown
1831–1913 · genre painter, English-born and American
John George Brown (Durham, 1831 – New York, 1913) was an English-born painter who settled in New York and became known chiefly for his genre scenes of city children.
The son of a ruined lawyer, he was apprenticed at fourteen to a glass cutter in Newcastle, where he attended evening classes. He later worked in Edinburgh and London before emigrating to the United States in 1853. In New York he married the daughter of his employer, whose financial support allowed him to devote himself fully to painting.
His precise, literary style focused on street urchins, bootblacks, flower sellers and street musicians, depicted with a certain idealization. Among his works are Lesson in Music (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1870) and Perfectly Happy (Butler Institute of American Art, 1885). He was a founding member of several art societies and served as vice-president of the National Academy of Design from 1899 to 1904. His pictures were reproduced as lithographs and distributed with packaged teas, which brought him wide popularity with the public, though less so with connoisseurs.
Works (1)
John George Brown painted this 1904 oil on canvas showing a man at work building boats. The available information says little about who commissioned it or what deeper meaning the scene may carry, so it is best read simply as a record of a maritime craft. It is held by the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Where to see the work
- Cleveland Museum of Art Cleveland · 1