Deborah Brown

Sheep on the Road sculpture, Belfast

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Brown was an only child who became fascinated with nature during childhood years spent in Cushendun in the Glens of Antrim. Brown's grandmother is credited with encouraging her artwork and supplying her with paints and materials from a young age.[1] In 1934 her family moved to Cushendun into a house designed by Tom Henry, the brother of the painter Paul Henry.[3] Brown credits her Mother for instilling in her a love of animals, and along with the rural life of picking potatoes, cutting hay and turf, left an indelible mark on her work.[4]

Brown had her first informal art lessons from James Humbert Craig who lived locally.[4] Brown was initially educated at Belfast Royal Academy[3] and towards the end of the war she studied at Richmond Lodge School after the family returned to Belfast.[5] She also received private lessons at Sydney Smith's studio in Belfast. In preparation for attending art college, Brown was instructed in art-history by James McCord.[5] She studied landscape painting at Belfast College of Art in 1946 then enrolled at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin in 1947 to study painting.[6] In Dublin she studied under Sean Keating, Maurice MacGonigal, Lucy Charles, and Professor Herkner who taught sculpture, and in addition she attended the National University under Françoise Henry to learn art-history. Brown joined a group with artist and musician Michael Morrow and friends, where she played base viol, having been classically trained at a young age. After three years studying in Dublin she continued her studies in Paris, where she became interested in the primary colours of European Modernism.[7] Brown's abstract paintings were heavily influenced by the works of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Antoni Tàpies, Lucio Fontana and William Scott.[8]

Upon returning to Belfast in 1951, Brown made preparations for her first solo exhibition at the CEMA Gallery, for which the poet John Hewitt contributed an introduction to the catalogue. In the same year Brown befriended Alice Berger-Hammerschlag with whom she remained friends until her death in 1969. Brown was later asked by Kenneth Jamison, the Director of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, to select a committee to oversee an arts bursary scheme set-up in memory of Berger-Hammerschlag and which aided many younger artists to travel and to purchase equipment and materials.[9]

In 1956 Mary O'Malley having seen Brown's abstract paintings, asked Brown to paint some stage sets which had been designed by George Morrow, for the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. In 1960 Brown was appointed one of seven trustees of the newly formed Lyric Players Trust including TP Flanagan and John Hewitt.[10] Her involvement with stage design and the creation of various props provoked her interest in sculpture.[11] Brown became a member of the Free Painters and Sculptors and the Women's International Art Club in the early 1960s, and worked in her Father's office to supplement her income. She went on to take her her professional exams in Chattels and Fine Arts, providing her with an in depth knowledge of the history of furniture, silver, porcelain and painting, as well as the laws of surveying, bookkeeping and property. Brown was later to become a partner in the firm.[12] In 1965 Brown gained a major commission from the architects Cruikshank & Seward for the Ferranti Building in Manchester. These large panels marked Brown's final flirtation with pure abstraction.[13]

From the mid-sixties onwards Brown's work moved from creating papier maché reliefs on canvas to becoming increasingly three dimensional, and upon a suggestion from George MacCann, Brown began to work with fibre-glass.[14] In 1966 she was introduced to the owner of the Hendricks Gallery where she secured a one-woman exhibition that same year.[15] In 1969 Brown had a solo exhibition at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland gallery.[14] Brown served as chairperson of the Visual Arts Committee of the Arts Council throughout the 1970s.[16]

In 1982 the Arts Council delivered a major retrospective of her work hosted by the Ulster Museum and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery.[17] Two years later Brown was invited to show with ROSC alongside 7 other Irish artists including Felim Egan, Barrie Cooke and Seán Scully which resulted in a further exhibition in the following year with the same artists, in the Armstrong Gallery in New York.[18] Around the same time Brown retired from her Father's firm and relocated back to Cushendun where she converted two outhouses into a studio.[19] At this time Brown was working on mainly animals in wire and papier-maché and when Sheelagh Flanagan became her agent in Northern Ireland she cast her first sheep in bronze and fulfilled Lord Belmore's request to cast a life-size papier-maché goat in bronze. That goat who served as a model is known as Johann, and was owned by the local vet in Cushendun until he was culled in the Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001. The bronze now sits on the same site as the animal normally sat, and has become a popular local landmark. Brown's animal sculpture's were exhibited at Flanagan's Shambles Gallery in 1989.[19]

Since then she has had one person shows in Ireland, England, Scotland and Canada and exhibits at the Shambles Gallery, Hillsborough, County Down and the Solomon Gallery, Dublin. In 2002 she had two exhibitions: Through the Rock at Cavanacor Gallery, Lifford and Cast in Nature at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast, curated by Marianne O’Kane. Her work is included in many collections in Ireland and abroad, including the Ulster Museum, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Bank of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.[2]

• Sheep on the Road (1991), Life-size bronze, originally commissioned by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for their sculpture garden at Riddell Hall, Belfast. In 1999 it was purchased by Laganside Corporation, after relocation of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and relocated to the entrance to the Waterfront Hall, Lanyon Place, Belfast.[2]

• 1946 & 1949 Ulster Academy of Arts Exhibition: Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Northern Ireland[20]
• 1948 Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition, Dublin, Ireland
• 1949 Society of Women Artists 88th Annual Exhibition: RBA Galleries, London, England
• 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1958, 1960 & 1961 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition: Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland[20]
• 1951 Deborah Brown Oil Paintings: CEMA Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland[21]
• 1954 Deborah Brown: The Mayfair Gallery, London, England
• 1955 CEMA Spring Exhibition: The Art Gallery, Stranmillis, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 1955 Deborah Brown: The British Council, Glasgow, Scotland[11]
• 1956 Deborah Brown: Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, Northern Ireland, curated by John Hewitt[11]
• 1959 Deborah Brown: New Vision Art Centre, London, England[15]
• 1959 Ulster Society of Women Artists: Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Belfast, curated by James White
• 1959 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition: The City Gallery, Stranmillis, Belfast, Northern Ireland[20]
• 1960 Ulster Society of Women Artists: Brown & Thomas' Little Theatre, Dublin, Ireland, curated by Fr. Jack Hanlon
• 1960 Contemporary Ulster Artists: CEMA Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 1960 Deborah Brown & Alice Berger Hammerschlag: New Vision Art Centre, London, England
• 1960 Paintings & Drawings by Ulster Artists: The Lyric Players Theatre, Belfast
• 1961 The Visual Arts Group: Whitla Hall, Belfast. Northern Ireland
• 1961 Ulster Society of Women Artists: CEMA Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 1961, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976 & 1978 Irish Exhibition of Living Art: The National College of Art, Dublin, Ireland[20]
• 1962 & 1969 Deborah Brown: the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Gallery, Belfast [14]
• 1964 Deborah Brown: New Vision Art Centre, London, England
• 1964 Deborah Brown: the New Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 1966 Deborah Brown: the Richie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, Ireland[15]
• 1966 Open Painting Exhibition, the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland, curated by the Arts Council of NI
• 1966 Art & Industry Exhibition: Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland
• 1967 Irish Exhibition of Living Art: the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 1967 Four Ulster Artists: the New Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 1968 & 1970 Open Painting Exhibition: Arts Council of Northern Ireland Gallery, Belfast
• 1968 Duchas: Exhibition of Ulster Artists, The Old Library Gallery, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 1973 Artist's Choice Exhibition: the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 1974 Collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Touring Exhibition: Eire Arts Council Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
• 1975 Oireachtas Art Exhibition, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin, Ireland[20]

• 1976 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition: Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland[20]
• 1982 Deborah Brown: Ulster Museum, Belfast, & the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin, Ireland[17]
• 1984 ROSC, Guinness Hop Store, Dublin, Ireland[18]
• 1985 Nine Irish Artists from ROSC, Armstrong Gallery, New York, USA[18]
• 1989 Deborah Brown in the 80s: The Shambles Gallery, Hillsborough, Co.Down[19]
• 2005 Deborah Brown: From Painting to Sculpture, Ava Gallery, Bangor, Co.Down, curated by Dr Hilary Pyle[22]
• 2006 Cross Section: Sligo Art Gallery. Sligo, Ireland
• 2012 Ireland: Her People and Landscape, Ava Gallery, Bangor, Co.Down[23]
• 2014 Deborah Brown: BFAMI Auction, Phillips London and Paddle[24]
• 2015 Deborah Brown: Royal Academy of Arts, London, Summer Exhibition[24]

• Sheep on the Road (1991), Life-size bronze, originally commissioned by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for their sculpture garden at Riddell Hall, Belfast. In 1999 it was purchased by Laganside Corporation, after relocation of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and relocated to the entrance to the Waterfront Hall, Lanyon Place, Belfast.[2]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Deborah Brown.

• 13 paintings by or after Deborah Brown at the Art UK site