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Harrison Bird Brown (1831-1915). Grand Manan. browse these categories for related items... All Items: Fine Art:Paintings:Oil:N. America:American: Pre 1900: item # 979144 Please refer to our stock # 2466A when inquiring.
Raymond Agler Fine Arts 16 Pleasant Street Gloucester, Massachusetts 01930 978-281-5048 $9,500 |
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| Oil on canvas, 20 x 36 inchesj, 28 x 44 framed, signed "H.B.Brown" lower right. Brown was born in Portland, Maine. Largely self-taught, he began his career as a sign and ornamental painter. In 1852 he moved to San Francisco and worked as an engraver for Harrison Eastman, a fellow New_Englander who had joined the westward rush in '49. Back East by 1858, and by then a full-time painter of landscapes and coastal scenes, he was re-established in Portland by 1860. Brown enjoyed enormous success during his nearly four decades as Maine's most popular painter of the rocky coast of his native state and Nova Scotia, as well as the dramatic mountain scenery of New Hampshire. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1855 to 1875, at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1876. He was a stalwart of the Portland Society of Art and its president in 1892. Donaldson Hoopes wrote: "His sensitive handling of color could produce effects of light and atmosphere that are reminiscent of John Frederick Kensett." The "Portland Transcript" of April 4, 1868 ("A Painter's Progress", Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., 2005) likely refers to this painting: "In Thrasher's window on Free Street, may be seen a fine marine view of Harry Brown. The grandeur of the sea and shore, at Grand Manan, is given with rare truth to nature. The ragged cliffs, crowned with scanty verdure, and wind-swept tree; the waves breaking into surf at their base, and rippling upon the smooth beach of the little cove; the higher elevation looming through the fog in the background, and giving a misty grandeur to the scene, all make up a picture which exhibits true poetic art as well as truth to nature." Brown was the subject of a major 2007 exhibition, "Harrison Bird Brown: Vivdly True to Nature, 1831-1915", at the Portland Museum of Art. | ||
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