Hilda Rue Wilkinson Brown

Hilda Rue Wilkinson Brown (1894–1981) was an artist and teacher from Washington, D.C. Brown was involved in art education, developing curriculum that challenged the typical mimetic approach of teaching in favor of more individual creativity. Brown is the only one of five grandchildren to have remained in Washington, D.C., where her great-grandmother first moved after being freed from slavery in 1835. This neighborhood would become the subject of many of Brown's paintings. Because of its proximity to local schools, LeDroit Park attracted black educators and scholars, fostering a community of intellectuals. One such community member was the renowned African American writer Langston Hughes, who lived in LeDroit Park in the 1920s. Although he left before Brown moved to the neighborhood, she was acquainted with his family.

In her spare time she enjoyed gardening and making pottery and clay sculptures. According to her niece, Brown had learned how to sculpt and make pottery when she attended Columbia University, and would gift these objects to friends or use them herself to decorate her home. She earned her Bachelor's in Education at Howard University and her Masters from Columbia University. In 1940 she made six linoleum block prints for the first edition of E. Franklin Frazier's book The Negro Family in the United States. The author, her brother-in-law, wrote in her copy that her work "made evident what (he) tried to write". Still Life with Tulips was exhibited at Howard University Gallery of Art in 1940. Hilda Wilkinson Brown: A Washington Artist Rediscovered. Posthumous Retrospective at Howard University, 1983. The Family from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Third and Rhode Island in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum Her work was included in the Barnett-Aden Gallery Collection. Ada was in the collection of Hampton University, but was later donated to the Harmon Foundation.