William Theophilus Brown: Paintings & Works on Paper

Paintings and works on paper from 1963 to 2001 by Bay Area Figurative movement artist, William Theophilus Brown, 1919 – 2012.

Brown attended Yale University (B.A. 1941) and U.C. Berkeley (M.A. 1952) and was featured prominently in the Bay Area Figurative Art 1950-1965 show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Brown attended graduate school in painting at the University of California, Berkeley.

He matured as an artist in a climate of artistic ferment, experimentation, and idealism, much of it centered around the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). There, several young painters, energized by David Park’s rejection of abstraction in 1950, laid the groundwork for what became the first postwar modern movement to bring Northern California artists to national attention.

Although Brown and his partner and fellow painter, Paul Wonner later traveled widely and relocated frequently to take on temporary teaching positions, San Francisco would remain at the center of their lives together, and the group of artists with whom they first connected in the 1950s would remain lifelong friends and, in several cases, vital sources of artistic dialogue.