Representing the people and subjects around her, Joan Brown created uniquely autobiographical work rendered in the painterly techniques of her West Coast abstractionist teachers and peers. Untitled, circa 1960, is an early example of Brown’s transitional output—works that began to straddle abstraction and representation as she decided to rebel against the stylistic constraints of her Bay Area community. The present work uniquely exemplifies this pivotal shift in the artist’s oeuvre from gestural to figurative.
Honing her skills under the tutelage of artists such as Ralph Ducasse, Frank Lobdell and her mentor, Elmer Bischoff, Brown chose subject matter which was most familiar to her. She often chose to paint things that were considered “domestic,” and it is this proclivity to depict what she saw around her that was the most revolutionary about her practice. “Brown claimed herself as primary subject matter for her art... much of Brown’s oeuvre can be seen as a visual diary of her life and a product of her penetrating self-scrutiny.”i
“I’m not any one thing: I’m not just a teacher, I’m not just a mother, I’m not just a painter, I’m all of these things, plus.”
—Joan Brown
Untitled seemingly provides an intimate look into the artist’s private home life, situating the viewer as part of the action unfolding in the living room scene. Brash and bold brushstrokes are used to render the fiery red and deep purple background—a color palette found throughout Brown’s practice—on which the four female figures and furniture rest. The leftmost figures almost blend into the sea of pigment behind them, while a more defined line is used to render the seated figure on the right, which pops out against the background in white. This combination of hard and soft, or abstract and figurative, perfectly encapsulates this important moment within the artist’s oeuvre, and suggests a connection between the two, seemingly disparate styles of painting—a connection which never disappeared throughout the rest of her life and career.
A prominent, yet often overlooked member of the renowned Bay Area Figurative Artists group, Brown was the youngest artist to exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art Annual Show in 1960 at the age of 22, around the same time when the present work was created. Today, her works are receiving the renewed attention that she so deserves. Most recently, her work was the subject of a major exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art last year, which will travel to the Orange County Museum of Art in early 2024. Her works are presently held in public collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
