THE PRINTS OF BOLTON BROWN
by Joan K. Yanni
Bolton Coit Brown (1864-1936), was one of America's foremost artistic-lithographers in the first half of the twentieth century. Though he is best known as the printer of lithographs by George Bellows and John Sloan, he was an accomplished artist and teacher in his own right.
Brown was born in Dresden, New York, in 1864, and received his Bachelor and Master of Painting degrees from Syracuse University. While finishing graduate work in Syracuse, he taught freehand drawing at Cornell, then became, in 1891, the first member of the art faculty at newly-founded Stanford University. While in California, Brown developed a passionate interest in exploring the remote canyons and peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, with the result that a high peak in the main range of the Sierras was named after him. Everything he did, he undertook with a passion for detail and perfection.
Brown left Stanford in 1901 to join Ralph Whitehead and Harvey Radcliffe White in the founding of Byrdcliffe, the Utopian art colony in Woodstock, New York. Brown had a falling out with Whitehead soon after; but, although he left Byrdcliffe, he kept a house and studio in Woodstock for the rest of his life.
In the winter of 1914-15, in New York City, Brown happened upon an exhibition of lithographs by Albert Sterner. Though Brown had made etchings in his early career, lithography was new to him. Fascinated by lithograph's ability to capture the appearance of intricate pencil drawings, Brown set out for London to learn the technique.
He had just passed his fiftieth year, and had already achieved distinction as a painter, author, scholar, teacher and mountaineer. But he was ready begin a new career.
Brown attended five or six classes in London, then set out to learn on his own. His appetite was whetted, and even the onset of World War I and London bombing could not dampen his zeal. He remained in London for a year and experimented with stone grinding, crayon formulas, lithographic chemistry, and printing techniques. He went so far as to visit tanneries so that he could choose the softest, most supple leather for his rollers. "I was like one of those air-pump carpet sweepers; everything I came near got sucked in," he wrote in My Ten Years in Lithography.
On his return to Woodstock, he began printing for artists such as Bellows, Sloan and Sterner. Teaching lithography was part of his summer schedule, and he also gave lectures and demonstrations at universities and museums. Often he would draw on a prepared stone, fix and print the image as his audience watched. His own prints were often landscapes influenced by Impressionism and Tonalism, as in Moonlight and Untitled. A purist who would never tolerate the use of transfers or metal plates, he was a tireless champion of “crayonstone” lithography, a process in which the drawing is made directly on the stone. He published My Ten Years in Lithography in 1930 and taught the medium to artists such as John Taylor Arms, Charles Burchfield, and John Menihan.
He is best known as the printer of over 100 lithographs by George Bellows done between 1920 and 1924. Brown, who considered the printer a collaborator equal in importance to the artist who drew the stone, insisted on signing the finished plates along with the artist. (In Dempsey and Firpo Brown's signature is on the left corner of the image, Bellows' on the right.) His work with Bellows and with lithography came to an end with Bellows' death in 1925. After his friend's passing, Brown virtually discontinued printing and spent his remaining years writing.
An exhibition of Brown's works in 1993 brought to full circle the association of the Gallery and the artist. In 1926, Gertrude Herdle bought a number of Brown's works and asked him if he would provide materials for an exhibit on lithography. Brown sent a stone with a drawing, proofs printed from the stone, tools he had used, and notes describing what he had sent...all for $150. In 1988 Mr. and Mrs. John Menihan donated 44 of Brown's prints to the Gallery. The 1933 exhibit brought together Brown's early prints, the materials he sent to the Gallery, and later works owned by his pupil Menihan, who died in 1992.
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