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Richard Lonsdale Brown Sold at Auction Prices

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Oct. 18, 2012
RICHARD LONSDALE BROWN (1886 - 1915) Untitled (Pastoral Landscape).
Est: $5,000 - $7,000
RICHARD LONSDALE BROWN (1886 - 1915) Untitled (Pastoral Landscape). Watercolor on wove paper, mounted on cardstock, 1913. 222x324 mm; 8 3/4x12 3/4 inches. Signed and dated in watercolor, lower right. Provenance: private collection. This romantic landscape is only the third work by the artist to come to auction. With his life cut short at the age of 24, works by Richard Lonsdale Brown are very scarce. James Porter described Brown and Lenwood Morris in his Modern Negro Art as "two of the most talented men of this epoch who died in mid-career before fulfilling early promises." Brown painted a similar landscape in 1912 that was used on the front cover of the April/Easter issue of The Crisis, which also featured a profile on the young artist. Porter p. 81.
Swann Auction Galleries
Feb. 23, 2010
RICHARD L. BROWN (1893 - 1917) An Indian Mound.
Est: $5,000 - $7,000
RICHARD L. BROWN (1893 - 1917) An Indian Mound. Watercolor, circa 1914. 325x500 mm; 13 1/4x19 3/4 inches. Signed in watercolor, lower left. Provenance: private New York collection. Exhibited: Students Artists' Exhibition, Doll & Richards, Inc., with the printed gallery exhibition label, inscribed with the year, name, title and artist's Boston address, "676 Shawmut Ave, Boston" in ink, affixed to the frame back. This fine, luminous watercolor is only the second artwork by this exceptional, early 20th century painter to come to auction. Swann Galleries sold the gouache, Mt. Monadnock, at auction on October 8, 2009. With his life cut short at the age of 24, works by Richard Lonsdale Brown are very scarce. James Porter described Brown and Lenwood Morris in his Modern Negro Art as "two of the most talented men of this epoch who died in mid-career before fulfilling early promises." This pastel also establishes the artist's move to Boston after his 1912 Ovington Brothers solo exhibition in New York--documented in the article "Negro Youth Amazes Artists by his Talent" in the March 12, 1912 issue of The New York Times.
Swann Auction Galleries
Oct. 08, 2009
RICHARD L. BROWN (1893 - 1917) Mt. Monadnock.
Est: $5,000 - $7,000
RICHARD L. BROWN (1893 - 1917) Mt. Monadnock. Gouache on Whatman illustration board, 1911. 390x490 mm; 15 3/8x19 1/4 inches. Signed and dated in gouache, lower left recto. Titled in pencil and inscribed "$200.00" in ink verso. Provenance: private New York collection. Illustrated: "Negro Youth Amazes Artists by his Talent," The New York Times, March 17, 1912. With the caption, "one of the best examples of the young artist's work." Brown received a lengthy profile in this article on the eve of his first solo exhibition at Ovington Brothers on Park Avenue in New York City. A remarkable rediscovery, this gouache is one of only three works by Richard L. Brown known today. He was one of the few African-American artists to achieve some critical and commercial acclaim in the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century. Brown grew up in West Virginia. A self-taught artist, he found guidance in New York with the painter George DeForest Brush and officials at the New York office of the NAACP. Brown managed to capture the attention of art writers--soon his works were described in both The New York Times and small journals such as the 1918 The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States and the 1923 Opportunity, Journal of Negro Life 1. Alain Locke's Negro Art: Past and Present from 1936 and James Porter's Modern Negro Art from 1943 also record his early contributions. Porter describes Brown and Lenwood Morris as "two of the most talented men of this epoch [who] died in mid-career before fufilling early promises." Porter describes how Brown's reputation was built on the three landscapes, known from their New York Times illustrations, whose locations and titles were unknown--"each is spontaneous and delightfully simple. In design they rank with some of the vaporous landscapes of the Chinese masters." Brown is also listed in more recent reference works including the 2009 African American National Biography.
Swann Auction Galleries

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