Benjamin Chambers Brown (1865 - 1942) American
Oil on Canvas Panel
Measure 11 1/2"in H x 9"in W and 18 1/2"in H x 16 1/4"in W with frame

Known for: Landscape, portrait and still-life painting, etching
Biography: Though the still lifes popular of the era often featured bowls or Indian baskets of California poppies, the icon of poppy covered slopes was probably only developed in the late 1890s. Brown wrote that on one of William Wendt's trips to southern California around 1900, he showed up at Brown's door "with a collection of poppy and other landscapes" looking for a studio in which to work. A seminal poppy picture painted by Wendt on a Malibu ranch in 1898 is known to be in a private collection. We also know that Brown, who specialized in portrait and figure painting, did not sell any work until about 1900, when he sold a landscape of the poppy field that stretched between Altadena and Eaton Canyon. By 1905, Brown was known for his poppy field paintings, which "have hardly remained long enough in his studio to become throughly dry." Brown, who lived in such close proximity to the fields, seems a natural for coming up with the poppy theme. Other artists recognized the salability of poppy pictures. Along with Brown, John Gamble and Granville Redmond became the best-known of many southern California artists who ultimately essayed the theme. There is no East Coast movement comparable to the California wildflower painters, although certain Texas artists became known for painting fields of bluebonnets. Even San Francisco artists were not as fond of the subject as their southern counterparts.

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