Gary Hugh Brown

Brown was born to Earl Hugh and Dorothy Aileen Brown in 1941, in Evansville, Indiana.[3] While a student, Brown designed and painted sets for the Mesker Amphitheatre in Evansville.[4]

In 1966, Brown received a Master of Fine Arts from University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin.[5]

As of 2009, Brown is a professor emeritus of art at the University of California, Santa Barbara.[6]

Brown worked as an artist in Wisconsin, exhibiting his art at several galleries in the area. In that same year he accepted a position as assistant professor at UCSB.[7] In September 1966, Brown had a one-person exhibition at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science in Evansville, Indiana, where he was reviewed by The Courier-Journal.[7][8] In February 1971, Brown's watercolors were displayed at the Plaza Gallery of Fine Arts in Oxnard, California. His work was influenced by his travels.[9] Another exhibition in 1972, selected by Richard Ames, a critic for the Santa Barbara News-Press, was at the Gallery de Silva in Montecito Village. It included Landscape Reflection, a self-portrait of Brown done in 1971.[10][11] Brown did the drawings of the Santa Cruz Mountain Poems, by poet and author Morton Marcus in November 1972.[12][13][14] He did the centerfold sketchbook for Free Beaches by Noel Young/Capra Press in 1974.[15]

Brown did a watercolor hand poster in the 1970s, and in May 1976, had a solo exhibit called, Hands Across The Heavens, at the Source Gallery in San Francisco.[16][17] In 1977, Brown exhibited Labyrinths, at the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art and at the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science.[18] A small version of Fortune, the size of a playing card mounted on a panel, 2009 12 x 16", is in AD&A Museum's permanent collection at UCSB.[1] Included in Anthology were Brown's drawings of the Devereaux Series sketchbooks and prints at the Art/Life Gallery.[19]

In 1984 through 2000, Brown donated 95 art objects to the AD&A Museum's permanent collection located on the campus of the UCSB.[20] The book Dreamworks, an interdisciplinary quarterly, published in 1986, has a chapter entitled, Images From A Portfolio by Gary Brown that includes two drawings, Landscape Reflection, (1971), and Nightmare, (1981).[21] In November 1991, Brown had a solo exhibition at the Allan Hancock College Art Gallery in Santa Maria, California.[2]

In the Tea Fire of November 2008, Brown lost his home, including his art collection. Brown donated a small print in 2008 to AD&A a few weeks prior to the blaze.[20] In April 2009, an exhibit, Signs of His Times, honored Brown's commitment to AD&A and UCSB by highlighting selections from the gifts he had made to the museum since 1984. The exhibition included selections of Brown's own works, which demonstrated his background in figurative drawing and presented his most recent work of art.[20]

Brown did illustrations for Catfish Goodbye (Anubis Press) poems by Tim Reynolds, 1966.[22] His work was displayed at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science in 1966[7] and in one man shows Folded Drawings, at the Fleischer-Anhalt gallery, Los Angeles in 1967[23] and Casted Watercolors, at Comsky Gallery in 1975.[24]

DePauw University has the Gary Hugh Brown papers, a collection of news clippings and biography.[25]