Vincent, the youngest of six children, was born in 1901. His father Milan Morovic migrated to Brisbane in 1862 from a Dalmatian coastal village. He established himself in Queensland and eventually purchased land at Fortitude Valley, changing his name to its English equivalent, Brown. Vincent was educated at Catholic schools in the Valley. It was here that Brown discovered that he had a fine singing voice and also developed an early interest in theatre.
Brown’s beginnings in art were inspired by the work of one of Australia’s most prominent turn-of-the-century landscape water colourists, Toowoomba born J. J. Hilder . Brown modelled his work on Hilder’s subtle, nuanced washes but his works were always more vigorously executed and both artists shared a romantic attachment to placid, rural scenes. Brown focused on the farms, rural settings and scenes of boats and river banks, in the Coomera and Southport areas as one of his sisters, Emily, was a teacher in the area. The appeal of these watercolours assured their ready sale through the Sydney dealer Adolf Albers. The Catholic Archbishop of Queensland, the Reverend James Duhig and his nephew, Dr J.V. Duhig, were among his early patrons.
Brown trained first at an advertising and commercial art firm, the Soden Studio, in Brisbane from 1920 to 1935. He then travelled to London where from 1936 to 1939 he attended the Slade School of Fine Arts, under Professor Randolph Schwabe, and at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, under Iain MacNab. Other important Australian modernist artists such as Melbourne’s George Bell also studied there. The first-hand experience that he gained of the modern movement in Europe shaped his artistic development from that time onwards. He began working in oils only towards the end of his time at the Slade School – so the late 1930s and early 1940s became a major period of exploration after the first discovery of modernism, a discovery which he says hit him “like a pie in the face”. In a 1990 interview with Christopher Saines he said:
“I was very interested in the modern movement, not that I understood a lot about it. It was formal, and it was getting away from atmosphere for its own sake…something like Cezanne was trying to do…Impressionism didn’t go far enough for anybody who thought that they should be interested in the 3-dimensional world. The theatre used to “fall down” when it was all done with lights.”
Brown returned to Brisbane in 1940 and worked prolifically. He considered Kenneth Macqueen the first modernist watercolourist in Queensland but Brown considered himself the first modernist painter in oils. Because he grew up in this inner Brisbane area, Brown constantly sought his subjects in the inner suburban side streets and the Brisbane River, its bridges and its dockyards. His exhibition at the Canberra Hotel in 1945 comprised more than 200 works, the largest exhibition by any modernist artist ever held in Queensland. During this decade he exhibited with the more adventurous of the local art organisations, the Half Dozen Group of Artists.
During the 1940s Brown held another five solo exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne, Toowoomba and again in Brisbane at the Moreton Gallery, in 1949. His use of high keyed colours in this exhibition would have asserted his modernity to Brisbane’s audiences but it was his choice of subject that most caused the reviewer in The Courier-Mail to comment:
“The more 'refeened’ will be shocked to find Brisbane’s architectural beauty depicted not in conventional studies of a Million Pound City Hall, but in the fast decaying historical old hostelries, crumbling colonial ruins and tumble down shanties of Spring Hill, St Paul’s Terrace and Fortitude Valley. Brown, though, had remained faithful to his subject in the inner city.”
By this time Brown and his wife Dorothy (who he married in 1940) were already on their way to England, which was to remain their home for many years. Dorothy was to be his helpmeet and champion for almost 60 years.
The words of Vincent Brown’s quoting 'theatre’ points to the important influence it had in his life. Brown had produced designs for the theatre in Brisbane as early as 1920 and later trained at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon in 1937. He also produced designs for the Bach Society (1930), Twelfth Night Theatre and the Australian Theatre Guild (1941), as well as productions for servicemen during the years of World War II. He was also very musical and was a soloist for the St. Stephen’s Cathedral choir for 15 years. In the British Isles he concentrated more fully on his theatrical interests. He became Head of the Art and Drama Department, Gawr Grammar School, in South Wales (1949-64) and fulfilled a similar role at the Ynsawdre Comprehensive School, in South Wales, before he retired in 1966. Brown wrote several plays and even in his later years he could recite swathes of Shakespeare at will.
He returned to Australia in 1977 to supervise the estate of his brother George (who bequeathed 95 works to the Queensland Art Gallery). One of Brown’s discoveries when he returned to Brisbane was a series of etched plates (some of which had been actually buried in the earth) of which he had all but forgotten. Many of these depicted sites on the south coast that he had completed between 1920 and 1930. The publication of these etchings prompted a reassessment of Brown who, together with Lloyd Rees and Vincent Sheldon, is now viewed as one of Queensland’s pioneering print-makers. These experimentations took place while he was employed at Soden Studios. He printed 26 of these plates in 1980 using the old mangle with which he had begun his initial foray into etching and engraving some 60 years earlier.
Lithography was his greatest strength as a printmaker. Of the seven lithographs he is known to have made, the series of four which he drew and printed in 1940 at his home in Fortitude Valley remain among his most highly resolved and enduring images.
At the same time as he discovered his printing plates, Brown also discovered an extensive archive of his paintings that his brother, George, had kept together. This prompted Brown to exhibit a group of his works at the Verlie Just Gallery, Brisbane and to assert his claims for recognition for his contribution to art in Queensland. These claims were a resounding success. 'Vincent Brown; life and work’ the exhibition and book published by the Bloomfield Gallery, Sydney in 1980 and the survey exhibition ' Vincent Brown, an early Brisbane modernist’, held at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1990 have firmly established his position in Queensland, and Australian, visual arts history. During these years Jan and Martin Jorgensen of the Riverhouse Galleries exhibited and promoted Brown’s work assiduously. This renewed appreciation also prompted Vincent to take up his paint brush and re-visit his favourite themes and subjects, before his health forced him to relinquish his art finally in 2000, only a year before his death. Unfortunately Brown died shortly before the opening of the focus exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery, which has been planned to acknowledge his 100th year.
Research Curator, Queensland Heritage, Queensland Art Gallery
- Writers:
- Cooke, Glenn R.
- Date written:
- 2008
- Last updated:
- 2011
