Patrick George Cowley-Brown

Patrick George Cowley-Brown (1 February 1918 – 30 August 2007) was a Canadian painter who was an Official War Artist from April 1944 until December 1946.

Career Cowley-Brown was born in Singapore, Southeast Asia and moved with his family to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1926. By 1935 they had settled in Victoria, British Columbia, and he attended the Vancouver School of Art studying with Frederick Varley. While there, he befriended Paul Goranson, sharing a studio with him later. He then attended the H. Faulkner-Smith School of Fine and Applied Art in Vancouver. He was teaching when the Second World War broke out.

He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) from 1941 to 1946 and trained as a wireless air gunner. Posted to England in 1942, he became ill and returned to Canada. From 1942 to 1944, he worked at Rockliffe air force base where he painted and drew. During this period, he met Edwin Holgate and Charles Goldhamer, both of whom inspired him. In 1944, Cowley-Brown won first prize in the 1944 RCAF art competition.

He then moved to Ottawa where he exhibited with the Canadian Group of Painters. He died in Ottawa in 2007.