Sign-In
Cart
San Francisco Lithographer: African American Artist Grafton Tyler Brown Volume 14
Hardcover
Series: The Charles M. Russell Center Art and Photography of the American West, Book 14
ArtistsAmerican Art - African American & BlackIndividual Artists
ISBN13: 9780806144108
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: Jan 29 2014
Pages: 264
Weight: 2.70
Height: 0.90 Width: 8.50 Depth: 11.00
Language: English
Grafton Tyler Brown--whose heritage was likely one-eighth African American--finessed his way through San Francisco society by passing for white. Working in an environment hostile to African American achievement, Brown became a successful commercial artist and businessman in the rough-and-tumble gold rush era and the years after the Civil War. Best known for his bird's-eye cityscapes, he also produced and published maps, charts, and business documents, and he illustrated books, sheet music, advertisements, and labels for cans and other packaging.
This biography by a distinguished California historian gives an underappreciated artist and his work recognition long overdue. Focusing on Grafton Tyler Brown's lithography and his life in nineteenth-century San Francisco, Robert J. Chandler offers a study equally fascinating as a business and cultural history and as an introduction to Brown the artist.
Chandler's contextualization of Brown's career goes beyond the issue of race. Showing how Brown survived and flourished as a businessman, Chandler offers unique insight into the growth of printing and publishing in California and the West. He examines the rise of lithography, its commercial and cultural importance, and the competition among lithographic companies. He also analyzes Brown's work and style, comparing it to the products of rival firms.
Brown was not respected as a fine artist until after his death. Collectors of western art and Americana now recognize the importance of Californiana and of Brown's work, some of which depicts Portland and the Pacific Northwest, and they will find Chandler's checklist, descriptions, and reproductions of Brown's ephemera--including billheads and maps--as uniquely valuable as Chandler's contribution to the cultural and commercial history of California. In an afterword, historian Shirley Ann Wilson Moore discusses the circumstances and significance of passing in nineteenth-century America.
Also in
Artists
Trudeau & Doonesbury: A Biography: The Cartoonist Who Turned the News Into Art
Kendall, Joshua
Hardcover
Glorious Country: How the Artist Frederic Church Brought the World to America and America to the World
Johnson, Victoria
Hardcover
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki: The Influences and Inspiration Behind the Iconic Films
Rapold, Nicolas
Hardcover
The Black Family Who Built America: The McKissacks, Two Centuries of Daring Pioneers
McKissack Daniel, Cheryl
Hardcover
Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece the Sun Also Rises
Blume, Lesley M. M.
Paperback
Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination
Jones, Brian Jay
Paperback
The Genius in the Design: Bernini, Borromini, and the Rivalry That Transformed Rome
Morrissey, Jake
Paperback
Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles
Rozzo, Mark
Paperback
Modigliani: Man and Myth - Biography and Works of Italian Painter and Sculptor Amedeo Modigliani
Modigliani, Jeanne
Paperback
Impossible: The Love Affair Between Marcel Duchamp and Maria Martins, and the Artwork It Inspired
Naumann, Francis M.
Hardcover
Men at Work: The Empire State Building and the Untold Story of the Craftsmen Who Built It
Kurtz, Glenn
Hardcover
Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal: The Life and Times of a Female Impersonator
Roy, Sandip
Hardcover
Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan: Personal Histories of Two Icons of American Architecture
Thoreson, Trygve
Paperback
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
Laing, Olivia
Paperback
Broken Glass: Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight Over a Modernist Masterpiece
Beam, Alex
Paperback
Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: Over Thirty Years of Conversations with Robert Irwin
Weschler, Lawrence
Paperback
Autopsy of My Former Self: A journey through grief, transformation, addiction, personal triumph, and purpose
Burse, Jermaine Danté
Paperback
How to Think Like an Artist: Painters and Sculptors Who Have Changed the Way We See the World
Daunt, Catherine
Hardcover
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol [50th Anniversary Edition]: From A to B and Back Again
Warhol, Andy
Paperback
The Artist and His Museum: Charles Willson Peale and the First Public Museum in the United States
Webber, Diane
Paperback
Art Above Everything: One Woman's Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life
Griest, Stephanie Elizondo
Paperback
A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century
Rybczynski, Witold
Paperback
William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love: Art, Poetry, and the Imagining of a New World
Hoare, Philip
Hardcover
The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: Vol. 1: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island
Monkman, Kent
Gordon, Gisele
Paperback
Me, My Guitar, & Nina Simone: Stories of My Musical Life and Adventures with Nina
Schackman, Al
Hardcover
House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed
Forden, Sara Gay
Paperback
The Black Family Who Built America: The McKissacks, Two Centuries of Daring Pioneers
McKissack Daniel, Cheryl
Paperback
Utterly Lazy and Inattentive: Martin Parr: My Words, My Photographs
Jones, Wendy
Parr, Martin
Hardcover
Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash - Revised and Updated 50th Anniversary Edition
Gilbert, Pat
Paperback
Composing Olana: A Journey on Foot Through Frederic Church's Greatest Work of Art
LaFarge, Annik
Paperback