John Sylvan Brown (American, 1868-1953), Near Hogback Mountain

Watercolor on paper (laid on board), 1951, signed and dated at lower left, retaining label to the verso, matted and framed below glass.

Sheet sight 10 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.

From the Collection of Mr. Jonathan P. Alcott, Raleigh, North Carolina

Born near Omaha, Nebraska, John Sylvan Brown was a successful businessman in the Midwest. By 1919, his daughter married a commercial artist, Alfred Colby Hockings, a student and later instructor at the Art Institute of Chicago. Brown enrolled in classes there shortly after. He considered himself an amateur artist and was a founder of the La Grange Art League. Later in life, he discovered the art colony in Tryon, North Carolina. In 1945, Brown purchased a home in Tryon, where he spent several winters painting mountain landscapes and woodland scenes in oil and watercolor. La Grange newspaper noted, “He seems to have rarely painted blue skies and his many wintry scenes are characterized by tall, thin, leafless trees that frame vistas into the distance.”

Good estate condition, not examined outside the frame.