Idbury Prints: An online gallery of original fine art prints

JOHN LEWIS BROWN (French / 1829-1890)

Despite being saddled with a name "si terriblement anglais" as the Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne put it in 1903, John Lewis Brown was a Frenchman. His Scottish ancestors emigrated first to Denmark, then setted in Bordeaux in the late eighteenth century. John Lewis Brown was born in Bordeaux in 1829. He seems to have been an essentially self-taught artist, who learned his craft through making copies of artists he admired, notably Delacroix. John Lewis Brown was a lover of horses, riding, and horse-racing, and not surprisingly the horse is the chief theme in his art, both paintings and etchings. John Lewis Brown made his first etchings in 1868, soon becoming proficient in etching, drypoint, and aquatint. A retrospective of his etchings was held at the Musée de Luxembourg in 1903, at which time the Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne printed our two plates, along with an appreciation of John Lewis Brown by Léonce Bénédite.