Born in Marion, Arkansas, Benjamin Brown was a landscape painter and printmaker, known for his Impressionist landscapes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and fields of poppies. His primary mediums were oil, lithography and etching, although he also did watercolor painting throughout his career.

Brown was educated at the University of Tennessee and at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts with Paul Harney and John Fry. His early interest was photography. In 1890, accompanied by friend William Griffith, he went to Paris for a year of study with Jean Paul Laurens and Bejamin Constant at the Academy Julian.

Returning to the United States, he lived in St. Louis, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Texas. His early specialities were portraiture and still lifes, but moving to Pasadena in 1896, he turned to local landscape and also painted the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert in Arizona.

In 1914, he began doing etchings, and with his brother, Howell, co-founded the Printmakers of Los Angeles, later known as the California Society of Printmakers.

Member: Pasadena Society of Artists; California Art Club; Chicago Society of Etchers; American Federation of the Arts, Laguna Beach Art Association.

Exhibited: Del Monte Art Gallery before 1914; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (solos in 1915, 1917, 1918 and group show in 1929); Oakland Art Gallery, 1932.

Selected Awards: bronze medal, Portland Expo, 1905; silver medal, Seattle Expo, 1909; bronze medal (etching), Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1915; silver and gold medals, Panama-California Expo, San Diego, 1915; many at Los Angeles County and State fairs.

Works Held: Oakland Museum; British Museum; Smithsonian Institute; Library of Congress; Los Angeles Municipal Art Collection; Montclair, NJ, Museum; Little Rock, AR, Museum; Cleveland Museum; California State Library, Sacramento, CA; Boise, Idaho Public Library; Southwest Museum, Los Angeles; Helens, AR, Public Library; Pasadena Public Library; Museum of New Mexico; The Fleitscher Museum, Scottsdale, AZ; The Irvine Museum, Irvine, CA.

(Source: Hughes, Edan Milton, "Artists in California: 1786-1940," San Francisco: Hughes Publishing Company, 1989.)