Month: December 2020

In December I continued to add content to the Catalogue and Ephemera and Juvenilia pages. I have also nearly completed the record of Brown’s exhibitions. I now have a list of every work exhibited by Brown at the Olga Korper Gallery (thanks to the staff for their hard work providing me with that information). I continue to work on tracking down records that detail the works exhibited in various group shows and one solo show at the Costin Klintworth Gallery. I am hoping that when I retrieve the rest of Brown’s papers and his computer from the studio I will be able to complete the record of his exhibitions.

The catalogue is not as close to completion. While I know every piece exhibited at the Lamanna and Korper galleries, I do not have as of yet a complete photographic record. As with the exhibitions, I am hoping that Brown’s remaining papers and computer contain images of the paintings. Since Brown sometimes painted over works which he was unhappy with, some paintings which I assume to exist (for example, missing Grimm series paintings) might not exist. It will take more detective work and conversations with Brown’s friends and fellow artists to determine whether any were lost to his penchant for radical revision. For the time being, I am not going to list a work on the catalogue until I have a photograph of it. I will revisit this decision should further research prove unfruitful.

In the short term, there are a number of minor works that I will add to the Ephemera page over the next couple of weeks. I will also continue to paint the picture of Brown the person by adding content to the Archival Materials. I hope to return to the studio in late January, but currently the entire province of Ontario is under a Covid lockdown. As with everything else at this moment, my ability to travel to Toronto and get into the studio will depend on the dynamics of the disease.

At the end of 2020 Jack’s sudden death continues to weigh heavily upon me, but his memory also inspires me to continue this essential archival and cataloguing work. If you have any information about Brown’s work that you feel should be included on the site, please contact me at: jnoonan@uwindsor.ca

I was able to spend the day yesterday at Jack’s Richmond Street studio documenting the remain works and collecting more of his papers in preparation for its eventual (and immanent) closure. As a result of this work I will be uploading a significant amount of new content over the next two to three weeks. While most of the works that are still in the studio were known to me and have already been included in the catalogue, there were a few Grimm series painting that I had not yet documented and a number of old works that I am excited to add to the catalogue. These later include some of Brown’s first exhibited works. The thematic and formal evolution of his technique and subject matter that comparison between these works and the mature works (which I would date from the Human Heads Series) allow us to make is striking.

I also discovered several dozen studies, sketches, and drawings that I had not discovered before. Many are interesting in their own write, but they are also of historical importance because many remind us that Brown initially employed the traditional painterly practice of working out a compositional plan for his paintings with sketches. His latter work abandoned the preparatory sketch for the re-working-scrapping-re-working practice that became synonymous with his work. I planned to photograph them today, but my visit to the studio was prevented by the stormy, snowy weather with which December has greeted us. I hope to return to the studio between Christmas and New years in order to complete the documentary work.

As an early Christmas gift I conclude this update with this series of answers to questions posed by an interlocutor whose identity I have not been able to determine. I discovered the document in the papers that Brown stored in his apartment. Jack did not write a great deal about his work, but these answers provide unique insight into his approach and priorities.