George Elmer Browne (1871-1946)

The American landscape artist, George Elmer Browne, was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1871.  After four years of study at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School under Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell, and two more years at the Cowles School of Art, also in Boston, the artist left for Europe where he enrolled at the Académie Julian.  While at the latter institution, he acquired a strong sense of design and a mastery of draughtsmanship from his teachers, Jules Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury.

By 1895, George Elmer Browne had established himself in Boston again and received the first of many prizes at the Mechanics Fair of that year.  At some point around the turn of the century, however, he returned to France and headquartered there for fifteen years.  Side trips to Holland and Brittany provided peasant-life subjects for his Barbizon-inspired canvases.  His work of the period was described by a reviewer as "broad in treatment; the touch [being] very energetic."1

Browne's painting, Bait Sellers of Cape Cod, utilizing this early style, was purchased by the French government out of the Paris Salon of 1904.  The artist was later made an Officier de l'Instruction Publique et des Beaux Arts (1925) and a Knight of the Legion of Honor (1936).

By 1916, the artist was living in New York and spending his summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he conducted classes at the West End School and often took his students abroad for further study.  Despite his globetrotting activities‑‑his travels included trips to Spain, Italy, England, Corsica and Quebec‑‑he managed to spend considerable time in Provincetown and became a prominent member of the artistic community there.  His mature work, both in watercolor and oil, became increasingly bold by the late teens.   A critic of his 1917 retrospective at Knoedler's Gallery commented on the strength of the color and design in his landscapes, adding that "the large canvases appear positively to elbow each other in their claim on the spectator's attention."2  Browne chose for his subjects during this period harbor imagery and dramatic coastal views of the New England coast, infusing each work with a personal and individualistic response.  "Drawing," he said, "should be like writing a letter to a friend.  It should aim more at conveying a personal reaction to the subject rather than a display of virtuosity."3

George Elmer Browne died in Provincetown in 1946.  Among the numerous prizes Browne received for his work, the following are significant:  Mechanics' Fair, Boston, 1885 (medal); Salmagundi Club, (prizes) 1885, 1901, 1915, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1927, 1932, 1936; Art Institute of Chicago, 1923 (prize); Allied American Artists, (gold prizes) 1928, 1934; National Academy of Design, 1934 (prize); American Water Color Society, 1936 (prize).

George Elmer Browne is represented in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; the Chicago Art Institute; the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; the National Academy of Design, New York; the New York Public Library; the Lotos Club, New York; the High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia; the Museé Montpellier, Paris; the Hotel de Ville, Cahors, France; and in many other public and private collections.

LB

© The essay herein is the property of Spanierman Gallery, LLC and is copyrighted by Spanierman Gallery, LLC, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from Spanierman Gallery, LLC,  nor shown or communicated to anyone without due credit being given to Spanierman Gallery, LLC.