PAUL BROWN: Master of Equine Art

Paul Brown is primarily known for his wonderful paintings, drawings and sketches of horses and equestrian sports as well as for his elegant and prolific illustrations for Brooks Brothers catalogues over three decades from the 1920s onwards. Born in Mapleton, Minnesota in 1893, Paul Desmond Brown's family was of Scottish-Irish-German descent. 'One day in 1904, I got 50 cents some place and went over to the National Horse Show at the old Maddison Square Garden and saw 'fine leppers' as we call them, and Thoroughbreds for the first time.' From then on he appeared to be hooked on drawing horses and filled dozens of childhood sketchbooks from 1905 to 1908 with pencil drawings. Brown worked steadily in commercial art in the time leading up to the First World War, attempting to get newspaper or magazines to publish his drawings. He travelled six times to Aintree, the English steeplechase course, in 1933 and kept a diary, written for his daughter Nancy, excerpts of which are reproduced here faithfully, day by day. His illustrations graced the cover of Time magazine in 1929 and he published many books about golf and shooting and illustrated juvenile and adult biographies, dust jacket frontispieces and vignettes for books, plus hundreds of illustrations for show programmes, postcards, advertising calendars, bookplates and the like. In his early polo and steeplechasing books, Brown drew strong recognisable portraits and gave character to both men's and women's faces. But when it comes to animals, no one can touch Brown in capturing action and expression in a few fluid lines. We know what will happen when a colt barges into the back of Lady Anne's mount in Black Beauty, and we know just as surely that every dosing puppy is a little rocket in disguise. A lazy cocked hoof, a breeze-ruffled mane can fill the calmest scene with immense energy. Technically brilliant, this is a full listing with eight pages of colour plates. 149pp, large softback import.