[BCMA] Museum purchases painting by 19th C. African American artist G. T. Brown

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.]

Fantastic news . sad they didn't think of purchasing it back on June 23,
2013 when it was offered up for auction at Westbridge Fine Arts in Vancouver
where it sold for $16,380 opposed to the $44,000 paid for it this past
month.  


http://www.westbridge-fineart.com/site/past_auctions_artist.php?artistID=190
3

Glad it is in the public domain as early images of BC are rare and hard to
find and I hope it will encurage other museums and galleries to seek out and
collect these important pieces of our cultural fabric. 

Cheers,

Paul F. Crawford

Director/Curator

Penticton Art Gallery

199 Marina Way

Penticton, B.C. 

V2A 1H5 Canada 

Phone:  <tel:%28250%29%20493-2928> (250) 493-2928

Web:  <http://www.pentictonartgallery.com/> www.pentictonartgallery.com 

 

From: bcma-bounces at lists.vifa.ca [mailto:bcma-bounces at lists.vifa.ca] On
Behalf Of Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.
Sent: April-23-18 10:47 AM
To: Communication, RBCM RBCM:EX
Subject: [BCMA] Museum purchases painting by 19th C. African American artist
G. T. Brown

 

April 23, 2018

 

The Royal BC Museum purchases painting by 

19th century African American artist Grafton Tyler Brown

 

VICTORIA, BC-The Royal BC Museum has acquired an important landscape
painting, a work of artistic and historical significance to British
Columbians.

 

With the recent purchase of Giant's Castle Mountain: A. L. Fortune Farm,
Enderby, BC Oct 6, 1882, the Royal BC Museum now holds the greatest number
and most significant of Grafton Tyler Brown's Canadian works in the world. 

 

"We hope that the painting's subject matter and history will lead to
significant, perhaps challenging, conversations about the history of
settlers in BC-including immigrants like Brown," said, Prof. Jack Lohman,
CEO of the Royal BC Museum. "It's a focal point for discussing ethnicity and
identity, and also allows us probe the relationship between landscape
paintings, nature and the presence of humans."

 

Grafton Tyler Brown (1841-1918) was a painter, lithographer and
cartographer, the first African American artist to create works depicting
the Pacific Northwest, California and British Columbia. 

 

In 1883, he made 22 paintings of BC in his Victoria studio, based on
drawings made during a geological survey into the southern interior of the
province. Giant's Castle Mountain is one such product of the expedition. 

 

The painting depicts Fortune's farmstead on the edge of a forest, the
agrarian foreground dwarfed by a looming mountain. 

 

Dr. John Lutz of the University of Victoria, a Brown authority, has deemed
this work the most important of Brown's BC paintings. Lutz provides
historical context for Fortune's ranch, noting that Fortune was "a major
historical figure in the Okanagan as well as one of the Overlanders in1862."
The Overlanders were a group of adventurers who walked from the
Prairies-over the Rocky Mountains-to the Cariboo goldfields.

 

Fortune was one of the first Caucasian settlers in the North Okanagan region
to pre-empt land near what became Enderby. ("Pre-emption" was a method of
acquiring provincial Crown land for settlement and agriculture; the BC
Archives holds a research guide about BC pre-emption records:
<https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/assets/Pre-emptions_homesteads_quick_guide.pdf>
https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/assets/Pre-emptions_homesteads_quick_guide.pdf.)


 

The BC Archives already holds in its collection Brown's BC catalogue and a
rare portrait.  Only 10 of Brown's other Canadian works are accounted for in
public and private collections. 

 

The Royal BC Museum purchased the painting in March, 2018, for $44,000 from
Uno Langmann Fine Art Ltd., with funds from the Royal BC Museum Foundation
and additional financial support from the Friends of the BC Archives. 

 

About the Royal BC Museum

The Royal BC Museum explores the province's human history and natural
history, advances new knowledge and understanding of BC, and provides a
dynamic forum for discussion and a place for reflection. The museum and
archives celebrate culture and history, telling the stories of BC in ways
that enlighten, stimulate and inspire. Located in Victoria on the
traditional territory of the Lekwungen (Songhees and Xwsepsum Nations), we
are a hub of community connections in BC-onsite, offsite and online-taking
pride in our collective histories. 

 

- 30 -

 

Media contact:

Royal BC Museum Media Inquiries 

250-387-5051

 <mailto:news at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca> news at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca 

Twitter_logo_blue <https://twitter.com/RoyalBCMuseum> @RoyalBCMuseum
<https://www.instagram.com/royalbcmuseum/> royalbcmuseum
<http://www.facebook.com/RoyalBCMuseum/> RoyalBCMuseum

 

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