WATERVILLE, MAINE.- Contemporary Prints and Photographs from the Bruce Brown Collection, an exhibit of works by internationally recognized artists, will be on view at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville through March 23. The exhibit comes from the personal collection of Bruce Brown, a retired Maine schoolteacher who managed to assemble an extraordinary private collection over the last quarter century. It will open with a reception at the museum from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 19, that is open to the public.

Contemporary Prints and Photographs from the Bruce Brown Collection features more than 100 prints and 40 photographs from the most accomplished and innovative artists from the last 50 years. The collection is noted for placing in close proximity the works of local and internationally known artists, such as Milton Avery, Chuck Close, Robert Indiana, Alex Katz, David Hockney, Richard Diebenkorn, Sol LeWitt, Terry Winters, Anne Harris, Louisa Chase and Robert Rauschenberg. Brown also recently began collecting the works of Maine photographers. Forty works by photographers including Melonie Bennett, Rudy Burckhardt, Tillman Crane, Paul D’Amato, Judith Ellis Glickman, Todd Webb and William Wegman will be on view.

Brown, a retired teacher from Freeport High School and member of the Colby Class of 1962, started collecting artwork in the mid-1970s and since 1977 has focused on contemporary printmaking. He has acquired more than 170 prints and 55 photographs. Initially he collected works primarily from Maine artists but eventually began to collect prints from national and international artists. He is now curator of the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport.