John George Brown On Sale

John George Brown was born in 1831 near Durham, England. At fourteen he began a seven-year apprenticeship as a glass-cutter in Newcastle-on-Tyne, studying at night with William Bell Scott at the School of Design. From 1852 to 18253 he worked at the Holyrood Glass Works, Edinburgh, studying evenings at the Trustees Academy with Robert Scott Lauder. In 1853 Brown spent the summer in London where he painted a few portraits before emigrating to the United States that fall. He settled in Brooklyn finding work at the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company. During this time he attended the free classes offered at the Graham Art School and later studied under Thomas Seir Cummings at the National Academy of Design. In 1855, Brown opened a studio as a portrait painter. Brown received the support of the art dealer, Samuel S. P. Avery, and John H. Sherwood, collector and builder of the Sherwood Studio Building in 1880, who encouraged his turning from portraits to children as subjects. In 1859 Brown was one of the founding members of the Brooklyn Art Society and in 1861 a founding member of the Brooklyn Art Association. He moved to New York in 1861 finding quarters in the Tenth Street Studio Building where he maintained a studio for the rest of his life. Brown began in 1858 to exhibit at the National Academy, a practice he continued every year, except 1871, until his death. He was elected an associate of the Academy in 1861, full member in 1863, and served as its vice-president from 1899-1904. After turning to genre scenes of the street children of New York City in the 1860s, he soon became famous and wealthy. Brown copyrighted many of his paintings that were often reproduced commercially as chromolithographs or photographic reproductions. In 1867 he was elected one of the original members of the American Watercolor Society and was its president from 1887-1904. Brown and the art dealer, John Snedecor, travelled to Europe in 1870, visiting both London and Paris. During the summer months, he often explored the rural areas of New York and Vermont, as well as Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy.

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

Find fine art prints for sale on 1stDibs today.