Hugh Boycott Brown (1909-1990)
Thames Barge at Pin Mill
Signed and inscribed with title verso
Oil on canvas, laid down on board
10 x 14 inches
Provenance: Christies, London Belgrave Gallery, London
£675 (including UK delivery)
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A painter and teacher, born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, where his father Allan Robert Brown was art master at the Royal Masonic School. Several other members of the family were artists (including Hugh’s brothers Michael, whose surname used a hyphen, and Robert Brown). Boycott Brown learned from his father and studied at the Margaret Frobisher School, Bushey. In 1929 he began teaching at Royal Masonic Junior School, but he continued his studies in the evenings at Watford School of Art; during holidays studied at Heatherley’s School under Frederic Whiting and Bernard Adams; and during the 1930s was much encouraged by Sir John Arnesby Brown. By then Boycott Brown had begun his association with the East Anglian coast, a major theme in his work, although he also painted a lot abroad.
Catching fleeting effects of light and colour, especially sky effects, were the artist’s strong point, using small panels and oils. In 1947 Boycott Brown bought a cottage in Blakeney, Norfolk, where he lived permanently after retiring in 1970. Later exhibitions included Southwell Brown Gallery, Richmond, 1985; Belgrave Gallery, 1986; and in 1991 there was a memorial show at Abbott and Holder.
Source: Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman