Samuel Joseph Brown Jr.

Samuel Joseph Brown Jr. (1907–1994) was a watercolorist, printmaker, and educator. He was the first African-American artist hired to produce work for the Public Works of Art Project, a precursor to the Work Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Brown often depicted the lives of African Americans in his paintings. He worked primarily in watercolor and oils, and he produced portraits, landscapes and prints.

His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Early life and education Brown was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, and moved with his family to Philadelphia in 1917. His father was a mattress-maker and upholsterer and his mother, a seamstress. where in fourth grade, he won his first art prize. He graduated in 1930 specializing in art education. Brown received a Master of Fine Arts equivalent degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Art career Abstract by Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr. 1937. Published by Works Progress Administration (WPA), Federal Art Project, Philadelphia, 1935 - 1943

Early work Brown befriended artist, Dox Thrash, after Thrash arrived in Philadelphia in the late 1920s. The two shared a studio in the 1920s to 1950s, and operated a sign-painting business together in the mid-30s. Writing Lesson by Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr. 1938. Published by Works Progress Administration (WPA), Federal Art Project, Philadelphia, 1935 - 1943

Federal Art Project In 1933, Fiske Kimball, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, appointed Brown to the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), the first federal employment program for artists. He produced mostly watercolors.

When the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project (FAP) was formed in 1935, Brown began working with the Philadelphia FAP as a painter in the Easel Division and printmaker at its Fine Print Workshop.

Brown spent most of his time in the easel-painting and watercolor department but did learn printmaking, producing such works as The Writing Lesson and Abstract. He completed many paintings while employed by the FAP and won high praise for his works at major competitive exhibitions.

In 1933, Brown exhibited two pieces in the Harmon Foundation competition. Included were The Lynching, Smoking My Pipe and two mural panels of Black babies and kindergarten children.

The Philadelphia Tribune published a photo of The Lynching along with an article that stated, "Years ago, the most daring paint dabbler would not have dared offer the striking conception of a lynching". The article also called the work "one of the unusual paintings" in the PWAP exhibit and stated that "Brown is vitally an individual painter, who, despite his training for commercial design at the School of Industrial Art, breaks through conventions." Brown used a style “bordering on caricature. … His clever adoption of a folk-like style to present a serious subject became the mark of his artistic work.” The work had been rejected by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for its annual exhibition that year. “It is one of the most shocking pieces of stark realism ever perpetrated,” noted an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The exhibit had been scheduled for another New York gallery but it pulled out because of “political social and economic pressure”.

Some of Brown’s paintings, including The Lynching and the self-portrait Smoking My Pipe, were chosen for long-term loan to the Philadelphia Art Museum. At the time, Brown was the only WPA artist from whom the museum selected more than one painting. According to historian James A. Porter,

"Many judged the work shockingly amateurish and extremely grotesque. Others, including the exhibition officials and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, singled it out for special and favorable comment ... The artist, far from considering his use of exaggeration and emphasis inappropriate, declared that his eye would not permit him to depart from the normal except when compelled! Brown uses distortion as a naturalistic device to evoke the feeling of pain, anguish, suffering or struggle”.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt recalled viewing So Tired in her syndicated “My Day” newspaper column a decade later on April 8, 1946, giving it her own title of The Scrub Woman.

The painting – a photo of which appeared in Alain Locke’s The Negro in Art in 1940 – disappeared. Brown recreated it in 1982 with the title Scrubwoman II, which was shown in a solo retrospective at the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia. Brown’s Mrs. Simmons was prominently displayed and drew the most attention. Mrs. Simmons was featured in the exhibition.

At the same time, he was exhibiting two watercolors – Flowers and The Plaid Dress – in Negro Hall at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas. In 1939, he participated in a group show titled Contemporary Negro Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Some were also exhibited a 1946 solo exhibition at the Barnett-Aden Gallery in Washington, DC. His painting Impressions of Mexico was also in an exhibit at the Balch that year.

While teaching at Dobbins High School in 1946, Brown produced a series of serigraph posters on global peace and brotherhood. Roosevelt purchased a set and donated it to Hyde Park Elementary School in New York. The series titled One World, Brown said, was “the realization of an artist’s dream for the glorification of the Negro child, and the fostering of good will through portraying children of all races in scenes encouraging to correct behavior patterns. Each Poster is the result of hours of thoughtful study, and each has been rendered as a fine art gem. They stand in their simplicity, a beautiful tribute to our children.” He participated in a 1969 exhibit at a professional fine arts show at Philadelphia’s Municipal Services Building sponsored by the National Forum of Professional Artists, where he was cited as “the patriarch of living Philadelphia Negro painters” by the art editor of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. In 1980, his works were part of a group show at the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum, now the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and in 1989, a traveling show of works from the Brandywine Workshop organized by the Smithsonian. It included a self-portrait from 1985 that showed an older Brown. It is in the collection of the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia.

In 1990, Brown was represented in the show “Against the Odds: African American Artists and the Harmon Foundation” at the Newark Art Museum in New Jersey.

In 2015, a Brown watercolor The Odd Sister (1973) was part of a group show at the Woodmere Art Museum titled “We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s.”

Affiliations Brown was a member Tra Club, an organization of Black artists initially formed in 1921. He was president of the club in 1932 when it had 11 members. Brown showed his work at the club's annual art exhibitions.

Brown was an early member of the Pyramid Club, an organization of Black male professionals founded in 1937. Against the Odds: African American Artists and the Harmon Foundation at the Newark Art Museum: 1990. the University of Pennsylvania, Woodmere Art Museum, Howard University, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia School District, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and the Williams College Museum of Art. Brown's 1985 self-portrait print from the Brandywine Workshop and five from the Federal Art Project are in the Print and Picture Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Teaching career Brown was a substitute art teacher in Camden, New Jersey public schools in the early 1930s. In 1938, he was one of ten Black teachers assigned to white schools in the Philadelphia School District, becoming a commercial art teacher at Bok Vocational High School. He worked at Vaux Junior High School followed by Dobbins Vocational-Technical High School, where he taught for 25 years. She was an elementary school teacher for 30 years. Born in Palatka, Florida, she moved with her family to Philadelphia at the age of 7 when her father received a pastorship at a West Philadelphia church. They had three children; their daughter Urlene died of leukemia at age 25 in the mid-1970s. She was the subject of his 1956 painting Urlene, Age Nine.