SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Paul Thiebaud Gallery announced its representation of the Estate of
William Theophilus Brown (1919-2012). A leading member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, a radical move in painting that pushed back on the dominance of abstract expressionism at the time, Brown’s career spanned over six decades, with the style of his paintings, drawings, prints, and collages evolving over that period. Brown, along with his life partner and fellow painter, Paul Wonner, lived an equally unconventional life as an openly gay man during the 1950s, when oppression and discrimination were openly espoused in everyday life and enforced under the legal code.

While known for being a member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, Brown’s earliest paintings were heavily influenced by cubism in the form of Pablo Picasso. As his paintings moved towards figuration, there were several sources of inspiration, but none more so than from his close friendship with Willem and Elaine de Kooning. As a result of their influence, Brown began paintings of football players in action between late 1951 and early 1952.

Brown’s move to Berkeley in 1952 for his MFA brought him into the circle of not only Wonner, but Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Elmer Bischoff, and other painters included in Paul Mills’ historic exhibition Contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting in 1957 at the Oakland Art Museum, which later travelled to the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art; Dayton Art Institute; and the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Brown painted figures in arcadian settings, such as rivers and lush landscapes, with broad, expressive strokes, and would do so through the first half of the 1960s. By 1968, however, Brown had shifted his style of painting to be flatter and more descriptive in appearance, and would continue in this mode for the rest of his career when depicting figures and landscapes. Importantly, portraiture became a defining part of his oeuvre, unlike for the other figurative painters. Brown also painted a significant series of Industrial landscapes he found around the Bay Area in the 1980s, and a series of erotic drawings in casein on paper in 1975 which were not shown until the 1990s.

Late in life, Brown began a new area of aesthetic exploration through a large series of collages made from torn up and reconfigured pieces of acrylic paint. Completely abstract in their presentation and aesthetic, Brown made these works alongside his figurative works from the year 2000 until his death in 2012.

William Theophilus Brown was born in Moline, Illinois, in 1919, and earned his Bachelor of Arts in Music from Yale University in 1941 and his MFA in Art from UC Berkeley in 1954. He later taught art at the California School of Fine Arts (later known as the San Francisco Art Institute), the University of California at Davis, and at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. His works have been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions across the United States and Japan. His work was also included in the landmark retrospective of Bay Area Figurative Art, 1950-1965, organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which later travelled to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

In 2023, the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, organized Breaking the Rules: Paul Wonner and Theophilus Brown, a joint retrospective for both artists, which later travelled to the Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA, and the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN.

William Theophilus Brown’s paintings, drawings, prints, and collages can be found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Crocker Art Museum; Oakland Museum of California; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska at Lincoln; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Iris and R. Gerald Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, and the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, among others, as well as in numerous private collections.

All sales of works from the Estate benefit The Paul Wonner and William Theophilus Brown Endowment Fund at the Crocker Art Museum, which supports projects relating to emerging artists or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI+) artists. Proceeds go to the acquisition, care, exhibition, scholarship, and publication of art by emerging and LGBTQI+ artists, along with related public programs.

Paul Thiebaud Gallery will hold its first solo exhibition of works from the Estate of William Theophilus Brown in January 2025.