Jonathan Brown

Jonathan Mayer Brown (July 15, 1939 – January 17, 2022) was an American art historian, known for his work on Spanish art, particularly Diego Velázquez. He was Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Fine Arts at New York University.

Early life and education Brown was born on July 15, 1939, in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Leonard M. Brown, an insurance agent and Jean Brown, a librarian and art collector who was particularly intrigued by the Fluxus movement. While in Spain, he became fascinated with the painter Diego Velázquez, which inspired a lifelong interest in Spanish art.

Academic career Brown began his teaching career at Princeton in 1965. The same year, Brown was promoted to associate professor. In 1972, he received the Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize of the College Art Association of America for an article the Art Bulletin about works of art in the Church of the Hermandad de la Caridad in Seville. The following year, Brown was appointed director of the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), New York University's graduate program in art history. He was named full professor in 1977. At the IFA, Brown promoted the study of Spanish art, a relatively neglected field in the American academy.

Curation Brown curated and co-curated a number of exhibitions throughout his career. While a faculty member at Princeton, he organized "Jusepe de Ribera: Prints and Drawings" at the university's museum, which featured several Spanish drawings from its collection. He continued to organize shows focusing on Spanish drawings, including 1976's Murillo & His Drawings, also held at the Princeton University Art Museum, Reflecting his later interest in the art of the Spanish viceroyalties, Brown organized the 2010–2011 traveling exhibition "Pintura de los reinos. Identidades compartidas en el mundo hispánico" on view at the Museo Nacional del Prado and Palacio Real in Madrid and the Palacio de Iturrbide in Mexico City. In 2013, he co-curated "La Mexique au Louvre: Chefs-d'œuvrede la Nouvelle Espagne" with Guillaume Kientz.

Personal life and death Brown died at his home in Princeton on January 17, 2022, at the age of 82.

Awards and honors Slade Professor of Fine Art, Oxford University, 1981

Comendador de la Orden de Isabel la Católica, 1986

Medalla de Oro de Bellas Artes (Spain), 1986

American Philosophical Society, 1988

Andrew W. Mellon Lecturer in the Fine Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994

Gran Cruz, Order of Alfonso X el Sabio (Spain), 1996

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1996

Premio Elio Antonio Negrija, University of Salamanca, 1997

College Art Association Distinguished Scholar, 2011

Corresponding member, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando

Selected publications (with Robert Enggass) Italy and Spain, 1600–1750: Sources and Documents, 1970 Jusepe de Ribera: Prints and Drawings [exh. cat.], 1973 Francisco de Zurbarán, 1974 (reissued in 1991) Images and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Painting, 1978 (with J. H. Elliott) A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV, 1980 (revised and expanded in 2003) El Greco of Toledo [exh. cat.], 1982 Velázquez: Painter and Courtier, 1986 (edited with J. H. Elliott), The Sale of the Century: Artistic Relations between Spain and Great Britain, 1604–1655, 2002 (with Susan Grace Galassi) Goya's Last Works [exh. cat.], 2006 Collected Writings on Velázquez, 2008 (with Susan Grace Galassi, Joanna Sheers, Pablo Pérez d'Ors) The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya [exh. cat.], 2010 Murillo: Virtuoso Draftsman, 2011 (edited with Luisa Elena Alcalá) Painting in Latin America 1550-1820: From Conquest to Independence, 2014 In the Shadow of Velázquez: A Life in Art History, 2014 Art and Empire: The Golden Age of Spain [exh. cat.], 2019.