Deborah Brown (27 September 1927 – 8 April 2023) was a Northern Irish sculptor. She is well known in Ireland for her pioneering exploration of the medium of fibre glass in the 1960s and established herself as one of the country's leading sculptors, achieving extensive international acclaim.

Early life

Deborah Brown was born in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

on 27 September 1927. Brown was an only child who became fascinated with nature during childhood years spent in

Cushendun Cushendun () is a small coastal village in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It sits off the A2 road (Northern Ireland), A2 coast road between Cushendall and Ballycastle, County Antrim, Ballycastle. It has a sheltered harbor, harbour and lies at t ...

in the

Glens of Antrim The Glens of Antrim,Logainm.ie
(

In 1934 her family moved to Cushendun into a house designed by Tom Henry, the brother of the painter Paul Henry.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.11 Brown credited her Mother for instilling in her a love of animals, and along with the rural life of picking potatoes, cutting hay and turf, left an indelible mark on her work.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.12

Education

Brown had her first informal art lessons from

James Humbert Craig James Humbert Craig (12 July 1877 in Belfast – 12 June 1944) was an Irish painter.Craig was born in Belfast to Alexander Craig, a tea merchant, and a Swiss mother, Marie Metzenen, from a family with a painting tradition. He was raised in ...

who lived locally. Brown was initially educated at

Belfast Royal Academy The Belfast Royal Academy (commonly shortened to ) is the oldest school in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a co-educational, non-denominational voluntary grammar school in north Belfast. The Academy is one of 8 schools in Northern ...

and towards the end of the war she studied at Richmond Lodge School after the family had returned to Belfast. She also received private lessons at Sydney Smith's studio in Belfast in 1944–45 when she was still at school. In preparation for attending art college, Brown was instructed in art-history by James McCord.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.13 Brown studied landscape painting at Belfast College of Art in 1946 under Romeo Toogood and Newton Penprase before enrolling at the

National College of Art and Design The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) is Ireland's oldest art institution, offering the largest range of art and design degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the country. Originating as a drawing school in 1746, many of th ...

in Dublin in 1947, to study painting for three years. In Dublin she studied under

Sean Keating Sean, also spelled Seán or Séan in Irish English, is a male given name of Irish origin. It comes from the Irish versions of the Biblical Hebrew name ''Yohanan'' (), Seán (anglicized as '' Shaun/Shawn/ Shon'') and Séan (Ulster variant; anglic ...

, Maurice MacGonigal, Lucy Charles, and Professor Herkner who taught sculpture, and in addition she attended the National University under Françoise Henry to learn art-history. Brown joined a group with artist and musician

Michael Morrow Michael Morrow (2 October 1929 – 20 April 1994) was an Irish artist, ornithologist, musician and musicologist who, together with John Beckett, founded the British early music group Musica Reservata in London during the late 1950s. He d ...

and friends, where she played bass

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

, having been classically trained in piano and cello at a young age. After three years studying in Dublin she continued her studies in Paris, where she became interested in the primary colours of European Modernism.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.14 Brown stayed in Paris for three months lodging with a French family. She visited the

Jeu de Paume ''Jeu de paume'' (, ; originally spelled ; ), nowadays known as real tennis, (US) court tennis or (in France) ''courte paume'', is a ball-and-court game that originated in France. It was an indoor precursor of tennis played without racquets, a ...

and the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, and became acquainted with the work of Picasso,

Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, Drafter, draftsman and Printmaking, printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo, ...

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

and de Staël amongst many others. As a student she was a frequent visitor to the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, the National Gallery and Victor Waddington's gallery. Brown's abstract paintings were heavily influenced by the works of

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

, Antoni Tàpies, Lucio Fontana and William Scott.

Life and work

Upon returning to Belfast in 1951, 24-year-old Brown made preparations for her first solo exhibition at the CEMA Gallery, for which the poet John Hewitt contributed an introduction to the catalogue. The exhibition consisted of thirty-five oils which were predominantly landscapes, woodland scenes and rivers. In the same year Brown befriended

Alice Berger Hammerschlag Alice Berger Hammerschlag née Berger (18 February 1917 – 14 July 1969) was an Austrian artist. She settled in Belfast and while creating abstract paintings also had a number of creative and administrative roles in Northern Ireland. Biography ...

with whom she remained friends until her death in 1969. Brown was later asked by Kenneth Jamison, the Director of the

Arts Council of Northern Ireland The Arts Council of Northern Ireland (Irish: ''Comhairle Ealaíon Thuaisceart Éireann'', Ulster-Scots: ''Airts Cooncil o Norlin Airlan'') is the lead development agency for the arts in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1964, as a successor to ...

, to select a committee to oversee an arts bursary scheme set-up in memory of Berger Hammerschlag and which aided many younger artists to travel and to purchase equipment and materials.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.15 After seeing Brown's work in the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, the Scottish Colourist John D Fergusson invited Brown to show at the British Council rooms in Glasgow in 1955. In the following year Brown had a solo exhibition of thirty-six paintings at The City Gallery in Belfast. The works were "carried out in a broad forceful expressionist manner and in non-naturalistic colour." Writing of Brown's abstraction in the 1959 annual exhibition of the Royal Ulster Academy Kenneth Jamison compares her to Olive Henry,

"Olive Henry is more decadent by instinct, a fine formaliser. Her pictures ''Man and Ropes'' and ''Riviera Port'', well defined and carefully abstracted, contrast in form with Deborah Brown's freer ''Oil Over Tempra, ic1959''. But I can not go all the way with Miss Brown's disregard for formal values. Regretably -for I respect this artist's sincerity of purpose- I find the result neither aesthetically pleasing nor purposefully communicative"

In 1956 Mary O'Malley having seen Brown's abstract paintings, asked Brown to paint some stage sets which had been designed by George Morrow, for the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. In 1960 Brown was appointed one of seven trustees of the newly formed Lyric Players Trust including TP Flanagan and John Hewitt. Her involvement with stage design and the creation of various props provoked her interest in sculpture.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.16 Brown travelled throughout the northern Italy in the 1960s, to Rome, Sienna, Florence and Ravenna, where she studied the works of Botticelli,

Donatello Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi ( – 13 December 1466), better known as Donatello ( ), was a Florentine sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used this to develop a complete Renaissance s ...

Michaelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...

and Fontana. Brown became a member of the

Free Painters and Sculptors Free Painters and Sculptors (FPS) is an artist-led organisation based in London, England, which regularly exhibits every year. It played a pivotal role in the establishment of abstract art in the 1950s and 1960s. History Background FPS ...

and the

Women's International Art Club The Women's International Art Club, briefly known as the Paris International Art Club, was founded in Paris in 1900. The club was intended to "promote contacts between women artists of all nations and to arrange exhibitions of their work", and ...

in the early 1960s, and worked in her father's office to supplement her income. She went on to take her professional exams in Chattels and Fine Arts, providing her with an in depth knowledge of the history of furniture, silver, porcelain and painting, as well as the laws of surveying, bookkeeping and property. Brown was later to become a partner in the firm. In 1965 Brown gained a major commission from the architects Cruikshank & Seward for the

Ferranti Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm was known ...

Building in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. These eight large panels marked Brown's final flirtation with pure abstraction. From the mid-sixties onwards Brown's work moved from creating papier maché reliefs on canvas to becoming increasingly three dimensional, and upon a suggestion from George MacCann, Brown began to work with fibre-glass.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.21 In 1966 she was introduced to the owner of the Hendricks Gallery where she secured a one-woman exhibition that same year.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.19 In 1969 Brown had a solo exhibition at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland gallery. Brown donated a picture to an exhibition to raise funds for victims of civil disturbances in Belfast in the autumn of 1969. The exhibition at Queen's University was organised by Sheelagh Flanagan and showed the work of T P Flanagan, William Scott and F E McWilliam, in addition to Mercy Hunter,

Carolyn Mulholland Carolyn Mulholland '' HRHA'', ''HRUA'' (born 1944) is an Irish sculptor. Life Carolyn Mulholland was born in 1944 in Lurgan, County Armagh. She attended the Belfast College of Art, and in 1965 was awarded the Ulster Arts Club prize for sculp ...

and more than twenty others. Brown was awarded the IR£400 ''Carroll Open Prize'' for painting at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1970 for Fibreglass form on canvas, painted red and black. Brown served as chairperson of the Visual Arts Committee of the Arts Council throughout the 1970s. In 1973 Brown joined Theo McNab in representing Ireland at the Cagnes-sur-Mer International Festival. In 1982 the Arts Council delivered a major retrospective of her work hosted by the

Ulster Museum The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres (90,000 sq. ft.) of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasure ...

and the

Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery The Hugh Lane Gallery, officially Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and originally the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, is an art museum operated by Dublin City Council and its subsidiary, the Hugh Lane Gallery Trust. It is in Charlemont House ...

. Two years later Brown was invited to show with ROSC alongside 7 other Irish artists including

Felim Egan Felim Egan (8 November 1952 – 19 November 2020) was an Irish painter. Biography Born in County Donegal, Egan attended St. Columb's College in Derry before studying Art in Belfast and Portsmouth and at the Slade School of Art in London. He liv ...

, Barrie Cooke and Seán Scully which resulted in a further exhibition in the following year with the same artists, in the Armstrong Gallery in New York.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.24 Around the same time Brown retired from her father's firm and relocated back to Cushendun where she converted two outhouses into a studio.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.25 At this time Brown was working on mainly animals in wire and papier-maché and when Sheelagh Flanagan became her agent in Northern Ireland she cast her first sheep in bronze and fulfilled Lord Belmore's request to cast a life-size papier-maché goat in bronze. That goat who served as a model is known as ''Johann'', and was owned by the local vet in Cushendun until he was culled in the Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001. The bronze now sits on the same site as the animal normally sat, and has become a popular local landmark. Brown's animal sculptures were exhibited at Flanagan's Shambles Gallery in 1989. A Brown self-portrait was amongst 15 new exhibits inaugurated to the National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland in a show at the Kneafsey Gallery, Limerick, in spring 1987. The Solomon Gallery in Dublin hosted an exhibition of Brown's sculptures in November of the same year. In 2016 Brown was the recipient of the ''Mullan Gallery Prize'' for the best sculpture at the Annual Royal Ulster Academy exhibition at the Ulster Museum for her work ''The Visitor''.

Death

Brown died on 8 April 2023 in Donegal, having spent many years at the end of her life in the town of

Ramelton Ramelton (; ), also Rathmelton, is a town and townland in County Donegal, Ireland. , its population was 1,266. History Ramelton is situated at the mouth of the River Lennon, 11 km north of Letterkenny and 4 km south of Milford, on th ...

. She was 95.

Legacy

Brown's work is included in many collections in Ireland and abroad, including the Ulster Museum, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Bank of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, the

Irish Museum of Modern Art The Irish Museum of Modern Art ( ga, Áras Nua-Ealaíne na hÉireann) also known as IMMA, is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art. Located in Kilmainham, Dublin, the Museum pr ...

, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and the National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland.

Selected works

*''Sheep on the Road'' (1991), Life-size bronze, originally commissioned by the

for their sculpture garden at Riddell Hall, Belfast. In 1999 it was purchased by

Laganside Corporation The Laganside Corporation was a non-departmental public body formed by the Laganside Development (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 with the goal of regenerating large sections of land in Belfast, Northern Ireland adjacent to the River Lagan. This ...

, after relocation of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and relocated to the entrance to the Waterfront Hall, Lanyon Place, Belfast.

Exhibitions

*1946 & 1949 Ulster Academy of Arts Exhibition: Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Northern Ireland *1948 Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition, Dublin, Ireland *1949 Society of Women Artists 88th Annual Exhibition: RBA Galleries, London, England *1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1958, 1960 & 1961 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition: Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1951 Deborah Brown Oil Paintings: CEMA Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1954 Deborah Brown: The Mayfair Gallery, London, England *1955 CEMA Spring Exhibition: The Art Gallery, Stranmillis, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1955 Deborah Brown: The British Council, Glasgow, Scotland *1956 Deborah Brown: Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, Northern Ireland, curated by John Hewitt *1959 Deborah Brown: New Vision Art Centre, London, England *1959 Ulster Society of Women Artists: Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Belfast, curated by James White *1959 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition: The City Gallery, Stranmillis, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1960 Ulster Society of Women Artists: Brown & Thomas' Little Theatre, Dublin, Ireland, curated by Fr. Jack Hanlon *1960 Contemporary Ulster Artists: CEMA Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1960 Deborah Brown & Alice Berger Hammerschlag: New Vision Art Centre, London, England *1960 Paintings & Drawings by Ulster Artists: The Lyric Players Theatre, Belfast *1961 The Visual Arts Group: Whitla Hall, Belfast. Northern Ireland *1961 Ulster Society of Women Artists: CEMA Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1961, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976 & 1978 Irish Exhibition of Living Art: The National College of Art, Dublin, Ireland *1962 & 1969 Deborah Brown: the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Gallery, Belfast *1964 Deborah Brown: New Vision Art Centre, London, England *1964 Deborah Brown: the New Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1966 Deborah Brown: the Richie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, Ireland *1966 Open Painting Exhibition, the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland, curated by the Arts Council of NI *1966 Art & Industry Exhibition: Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland *1967 Irish Exhibition of Living Art: the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1967 Four Ulster Artists: the New Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1968 & 1970 Open Painting Exhibition: Arts Council of Northern Ireland Gallery, Belfast *1968 Duchas: Exhibition of Ulster Artists, The Old Library Gallery, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1973 Artist's Choice Exhibition: the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1974 Collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Touring Exhibition: Eire Arts Council Gallery, Dublin, Ireland *1975 Oireachtas Art Exhibition, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin, Ireland *1976 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition: Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland *1982 Deborah Brown: Ulster Museum, Belfast, & the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin, Ireland *1984 ROSC, Guinness Hop Store, Dublin, Ireland *1985 Nine Irish Artists from ROSC, Armstrong Gallery, New York, USA *1987 Soloman Gallery, Dublin *1989 Deborah Brown in the 80s: The Shambles Gallery, Hillsborough, County Down *2005 Deborah Brown: From Painting to Sculpture, Ava Gallery, Bangor, County Down, curated by Dr Hilary Pyle''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.3 *2006 Cross Section: Sligo Art Gallery. Sligo, Ireland *2012 Ireland: Her People and Landscape, Ava Gallery, Bangor, County Down

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Deborah 1927 births 2023 deaths 20th-century Irish women artists 20th-century Irish sculptors Alumni of the National College of Art and Design Alumni of Ulster University Artists from Belfast Sculptors from Northern Ireland Women sculptors from Northern Ireland Alumni of Belfast School of Art 20th-century painters from Northern Ireland Women painters from Northern Ireland Members of the Royal Ulster Academy People from Cushendun 21st-century painters from Northern Ireland