John Brown Archive

Over the past month I have continued my research on Brown’s slides and CDs. I have discovered what I am certain are 8 of the Grimm paintings for which I had previously lacked images. Unfortunately, Brown was more meticulous about creating photographic records of his paintings than he was about labelling the slides and naming the photos on the CDs. I am not able to determine which of the missing Grimm’s the slides depict, but there is no doubt (or almost no doubt) that the newly added photos represent Grimm paintings. Given the fact that precise titling and dating is not possible at this point I have included them in the subsection of Suspected Grimms that follows the section of known and dated Grimms.

I have also added previously uncatalogued drawings (discovered on the slides) and, thanks to Brown’s brother Joe, two uncatalogued paintings from the transitional, mid-1980’s period of Browns career, a number of new paintings from his student days at OCA, and, most excitingly, the only known landscape that Brown painted, from 1983.

I have not been able to devote as much time to completing the research because I have been busy trying to finish some philosophical work. September is always a busy month for academics, and there are still dozens of slides and CDs to examine. I hope that September will yield images of the still 12 missing Grimm’s and more early career drawings. Nevertheless, while there remain some Grimm’s, Ping’s and 4 Mouth series paintings for which I lack images, I am confident that the catalogue now includes all Brown’s major paintings and works on paper. I want to catalogue to be complete and exhaustive so I will continue to hunt for images of those works, but I am confident that nothing essential is missing at this point.

With the help of my friend and Windsor photographer Doug MacLellan I have begun the process of transferring some as yet catalogued images from slides to .jpgs. I have also begun systematically working through the dozens of CD’s on which Jack stored images of his work, both finished pieces and in the process of development. The research on the slides and CDs has paid off: I have discovered 2 uncatalogued Grimm’s, several more likely Grimm’s, about a dozen drawings that I had not yet catalogued, numerous student paintings, as well as colour photos of paintings for which I had originally only had a black and white. All the new material has been posted on the appropriate pages. I have also posted part one of an essay by Marc De Guerre, currently a documentary film maker and a long time friend and collaborator of Brown’s The first part of the essay focuses on their time together at OCA. The second part will focus on their emergence into the professional art world in the stable of young artists assembled by Carmen Lamanna in the early 1980s.

I began working through the dozens of CD’s containing photographs that Brown took of his work. The excavation has proven fruitful. I have discovered 5 images of paintings that I had not seen before but from their appearance and context would seem to be 5 of the missing Grimm series. The pictures were on a CD with other late Grimm paintings. They were not titled, but the other paintings on the CD have been catalogued in the Grimm series. I cannot be certain, and have posted them with the other possible but not proven Grimms. The discovery gives me confidence that there are more to be found on the CDs, the hard drives, and the slides which I have not yet but will soon study.

The pictures of those five paintings were the only addition to the catalogue this month. I discovered two more reviews of Brown’s work, which I have posted on the reviews page, and added the first of my five (planned) critical essays on Brown’s work. The essay focuses of the influence of the Sudbury landscape on his early drawings. Critical feedback on the argument is always welcome.

Major Works

With a few minor exceptions, I have completed the cataloguing of Brown’s known and accounted for major paintings and works on paper. In order to be included in the catalogue there had to be either photographic evidence of the work or a record of its having been exhibited. There are some missing pieces of some important series (Autopsy Paintings # 3,#4, and#6, Ping B,C,D, and J; Portrait of Frankenstein and Lazarus #2 and 4 and Grimm #3,4,6,7,14,19,20,21,49,50,51,52,53,66,67,68,70,71,72,76,85,88,89, and 90) for which I have no photographs or any record of their having been exhibited. I will not list any of these works in the catalogue until I find evidence of their existence. In the case of the Grimm paintings especially I wonder if some of the missing were not painted over or otherwise re-worked and renamed. As businesses reopen I will be able to have his slide collection converted to digital prints. I am confident that at least some of the missing works will be found.

There are also source materials that I have not yet started to document. I will begin this work over the summer.

Catalogue of Existing and Accounted for Works:

Drawings and Works on Paper: 381 (144 drawings and sketches, 2 drawings (1986) for which photographs have not yet been found but which I know exist, 237 stills for the video project).

Paintings: Note: I count early panel paintings composed of multiple panels but intended as a single work as one painting. 483 (201 listenspiritlisten, 282 large scale works).

Ephemera and Juvenalia: 79 experiments, sketches, and studies and 24 items of juvenalia.

There are still a fair number of experiments and other ephemeral works to catalogue. There are also more pre-OCA works in his brother’s possession that need to be photographed and included. I will continue this part of the project but wanted to prioritize completing the catalogue of major works.

This month has been devoted to photographing and cataloguing the dozens of early drawings and studies discovered in brown’s Richmond Street studio. I have documented about 85 at present and have perhaps 20 left to document. I also discovered a series of very poignant sketches of men, never intended for exhibition, but too important to ignore. I will be posing those this month. Once those remaining drawings have been posted, the major work of archiving Brown’s output from 1980-2020 will be complete. There is cross-referencing between the record of exhibited works and the catalogue, and some detective work to be done to try to find photographs of works that I know exist but as of yet have no photographic record. (As I noted in my last update, this detective work will be aided by the slides I discovered. I am waiting for photo shops to reopen so that i can have them converted to digital prints for inclusion in the catalogue. I am confident that by the end of May I am confident that the archive will be nearly complete.

The process of deciding where to catalogue these early works (in the main catalogue or with the ephemera has prompted me to re-think the organization of those pages. I am thus panning a major re-organization of the catalogue. I am going to divide it into three pages: Paintings, Works on Paper, and Ephemera, Working Sketches, and Juvenalia. Most of the early drawings and studies will be moved to the Works on Paper page. Only obviously working sketches will remain on the Ephemera page. There are also some security upgrades to be performed on the site to make it both more secure and accessible. I will attend to those over the next two months.

I am always open to contributions. I myself am working on a series of essays that will cover the major periods of Brown’s career. The first, on his early drawings, will be posted in the next 2 or 3 weeks. If you have material to contribute, pleas contact me at jnoonan@uwindsor.ca

This month I completed the closure of Brown’s 401 Richmond Studio. It was an intensely sad moment for myself, my brother, and a few close friends and colleagues of Brown’s that were able to come to say good-bye. It was also, like all moments of closure, a time for joyous reminiscence and celebration.

As I noted in previous updates, the studio contained numerous drawings, sketches and experiments that I need to classify and post. The task is well underway but there are many dozens of items to pour over so it will take a few months to add all the new work. Since many were undated, I have to rely on conversations with his colleagues and my own eye to decide on dates. In the cases of undated studies for paintings whose dates I know the determination was easy; in other cases where I had to make a stylistic judgement the decision was more difficult. Although I know Brown’s work well, I am a philosopher, not an art historian, and not a philosopher much interested in problems of classification.

I have also had to make decisions as to whether to include these works in the main catalogue or in the ephemera section. My criteria were as follow. I included in the catalogue any drawing which: a) was a study for a known painting, and/or b) named and dated by Brown, and/or c) in my considered but imperfect judgement looked complete, formally and aesthetically. I classified as ephemera any work which was clearly : a) a quick sketch of an idea and/or b) an experimental working out of an idea but which was not exhibited because not yet fully realized.

In addition to the drawings, sketches, and experiments I also have Brown’s source materials: photos, medical books, etc. Once I have finished classifying and cataloguing the remaining art works I will post a selection of the source materials.

Finally, I also brought home 4 hard drives full of pictures of works in progress as well as dozens of slides of his major works. The slides are particularly important because they will allow me to fill in some blanks in the catalogue as well as to replace some of the black and white with colour photographs. I will have to get the slides converted to digital pictures so it might be a few months before missing paintings or better photos appear, but I hope that by summer I will have completed, with a few exceptions, the catalogue of Brown’s work from 1982-2020.

I once again close by inviting anyone who has any information about works not yet catalogued to contact me at: jnoonan@uwindsor.ca.

A February ends I have two significant updates to report. First, my request to two of Jack’s close friends to post my request for photographs of missing works has borne some fruit. I now have pictures posted on the Catalogue of three Ping drawings. This addition is a significant step forward, as they are the first photographs of the Ping series I have tracked down. Thank you to Rebecca Garrett and Caroline Azar for posting my request and to James Gunn and Richard Gorman for sending me pictures of the work.

Second, I will be returning to Toronto in mid-March (as soon as the lockdown restrictions are lifted there) to complete the closure of Jack’s studio. I know that there are dozens of small drawings still there as well as a filing cabinet full of papers and a hard drive. I will photograph and post the drawings on the Ephemera page. I am hopeful that the material in the filing cabinet and on the hard drive will contain records of the works for which I yet have no visual record.

I am also in the early stages of work on an essay on the influence of the industrial landscape of 1960’s and 70’s Sudbury on the drawings of the 1980’s that first brought critical and curatorial attention to Jack’s work. It is the first in a series of essays that I have planned.

March should see significant additions to the archives. While I am not looking forward to closing his studio door for the final time, I do look forward to filling in the remaining blank spaces in the archival record of his work.

Thank you for visiting, and, as always, if you have content to contribute, you can email it to me at: jnoonan@uwindsor.ca

I have updated the solo exhibition page. It now lists all the work exhibited by Brown in his solo shows at the Lamanna and Korper Galleries. The only missing information is for his 1993 show at the Costin Klintworth Gallery, his only show there before he moved to Olga Korper. Frustratingly, I remember attending the show, but I cannot recall the works he exhibited there. I am hoping that the papers still in his studio contain the missing information.

I continue to follow up leads on some of the earlier group exhibitions in which Brown participated. Except for his earliest shows, he tended not to exhibit new work in group shows. Thus, the information contained in the exhibition history of solo shows now provides a nearly complete record of Brown’s major works.

The catalogue of Brown’s work now presents as complete a photographic record of his paintings as I can build with extent material. I have replaced thumbnails with fuller sized photos and will continue to replace blurry images with higher resolution pictures. Three significant gaps remain: I lack photographs for a number of paintings form the Grimm and Ping series, and have no photographs at all (or even any personal recollection) of the Mouth series, shown at Olga Korper in 1995. Since Brown not infrequently painted over works with which he was not happy, I do not know for certain whether the missing Grimm paintings exist. I will continue to search for photographic records of the missing material.

I have added a number of paintings and drawings to the Ephemera section. For any veterans of the Queen West music scene from the early 1980’s, I have added .mp4s of a live performance of Brown’s band Rongwrong live at the Woodshed, Guelph, ON, from Oct. 30th 1982. Play it loud or don’t bother playing it at all!

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.