Brown was born in Greensboro, Georgia, but moved with his family to Chicago when he was only a month old. He grew up there on the south side of the city—an area with a rich art heritage. In 1963, he enrolled at the University of Illinois School of Architecture, and two years later, transferred to Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL. There he studied under visionary, R. Buckminster Fuller, the father of the geodesic dome, among other things. When he graduated, he returned to Chicago and went to work for the Chicago Tribune in the advertising department. In 1970, he moved to New York and immersed himself in the art scene there in Soho.
“In the late 1970s, Brown’s tendency toward figuration progressed in works that demonstrate his ‘adept interpretations of German expressionism, cartoon imagery, and folk elements.” (Excerpt from essay, Dr Lowery Stokes Sims and Bentley E. Brown)
In 1983, the year this work was painted, he began an association with Marlborough Gallery, and in his first exhibit there, one of his paintings was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The same year, he exhibited at Davis/Mclain Gallery in Houston, Texas, where this work was purchased by its present owner.
Brown’s work is included in the collections of Brooklyn Museum, National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Portrait Gallery, Kemper Museum (Kansas City), Smart Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Phoenix Art Museum.
