Christopher Brown (artist)

Christopher Brown
Born1951 (age 72–73)
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,
University of California, Davis
Occupation(s)artist, educator
Known forpaintings, printmaking
MovementNeo-expressionism
Websitechristopherbrownpainting.com

Christopher Brown (born 1951),[1] is an American artist and educator. He is known for his paintings and prints, often figurative and feature abstract settings with repeating patterns or shapes.[2][3] He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1981 to 1994.[4] Brown has also worked as an adjunct professor at the California College of the Arts.[5] Brown's work is associated with neo-expressionism.[6]

Early life and education

Christopher Brown was born in 1951 at the United States Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina.[1] His father was a doctor.[5] He was raised in Warren, Ohio and in Urbana, Illinois.[1]

Brown attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he received a B.A. degree in 1973; followed by a M.F.A. degree in 1976 from the University of California, Davis (U.C. Davis).[1][7] At U.C. Davis during his graduate studies, he was a student of Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley, and Roy De Forest.[1][8][9]

Career

Many of Brown's large scale painting works are painted from memory and he sometimes uses photographs for reference.[2] He creates collage-like arrangements within his paintings, which feature figurative images in surrealistic juxtapositions.[6] It is common to also see repeating patterns or shapes within the painting background.

In 1977, Brown had his first solo exhibition at Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco; and in 1995 he held his first traveling museum solo exhibition, History and Memory: Paintings by Christopher Brown, organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.[5]

From 1981 until 1994; Brown served as a Professor and later as the Department Chair at the University of California, Berkeley.[1]

Brown's work is in museum collections at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,[10] the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[11] the Cleveland Museum of Art,[12] the National Gallery of Art,[13] and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Landauer, Susan; Gerdts, William H.; Trenton, Patricia (2003-11-10). The Not-So-Still Life: A Century of California Painting and Sculpture. University of California Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-520-23938-8.
  2. ^ a b "Christopher Brown". KQED Spark. 2006-05-31. Archived from the original on 2015-10-18. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  3. ^ Bolt, Thomas (April 1, 1990). "Christopher Brown by Thomas Bolt". BOMB Magazine. Archived from the original on 2017-11-04. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  4. ^ Whiting, Sam (2011-03-30). "Catching up with painter Christopher Brown". SFGATE. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  5. ^ a b c d "Christopher Brown". FAMSF Search the Collections. 2018-09-21. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  6. ^ a b "Story Theme: The Influence of Memory, Subject: Christopher Brown, Discipline: Visual Art (Painting)" (PDF). SPARK Educator Guide – Christopher Brown. KQED. 2006. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-10-23.
  7. ^ Rosa, Rene Di (1999). Local Color: The Di Rosa Collection of Contemporary California Art. San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-8118-2376-0.
  8. ^ Ayres, Anne (1986). 2nd Newport Biennial: The Bay Area. Newport Harbor Art Museum. pp. 10, 53. ISBN 978-0-917493-07-2.
  9. ^ Landauer, Susan (2017-04-15). Of Dogs and Other People: The Art of Roy De Forest. Univ of California Press. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-520-29220-8.
  10. ^ "Brown, Christopher". SFMOMA. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  11. ^ "Dutch Daybreak, 1990". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  12. ^ "Farmers' Almanac". Cleveland Museum of Art. 2018-10-31. Archived from the original on 2019-12-27. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  13. ^ "Christopher Brown, Eighty-second Street, 1993". National Gallery of Art (NGA). 1993. Archived from the original on 2021-10-29. Retrieved 2021-10-13.