The Art of Joan Brown

by Jacquelynn Baas and Karen Tsujimoto

Published by University of California Press, 1998.

The prolific talents of San Francisco Bay Area painter Joan Brown (1938-1990) inform every page of this shining testament to a singular artist. For Brown, art was a means of self-revelation and self-investigation, a fact made abundantly clear by the autobiographical nature of her work. In the first book to fully explore Joan Brown’s artistic career, Karen Tsujimoto provides an overview of Brown’s life from her San Francisco childhood to her years as a mature artist and teacher. Jacquelynn Baas focuses on Brown’s use of universal and personal symbolism by analyzing one of her most celebrated paintings, The Bride. Both authors make extensive use of interviews that let Joan Brown speak for herself about art and the creative process.

Serious, full of energy and passion, Brown approached both her personal and her professional life with characteristic intensity. Married four times, a devoted mother, a competitive swimmer, an inspiring teacher, and an outspoken opponent of the art world’s growing commercialism, issues Brown dealt with early in her career anticipated concerns raised by the women’s movement in the 1970s. Brown’s late-career, introspective focus on her own spiritual development demonstrated her independence from art world norms. What lives in the work of Joah Brown is her fascination with the human condition, and a determination to record its essence as reflected in her own life.