Dated Web objects 1880-1919

John George Brown

Date: 1880

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.19

Text Entries: (modified anniversary publication entry) The son of a poor family in Durham, England, John George Brown served as an apprentice to a glass cutter during his youth. He supplemented his training with evening drawing classes, and in 1852 moved to Edinburgh to study art. After a brief stay in London, Brown immigrated to the United States, where he found work in Brooklyn, New York, sketching stained-glass window designs. The year 1855 marked a redirection for Brown: he enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York City and, along with Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson, rented a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building. In 1861 Brown helped found the Brooklyn Art Association, and the following year he was naturalized as a citizen of the United States. By this time, Brown had developed his signature subject-anecdotal images of children-for which he enjoyed consistent success throughout his career. While Brown gained his fame painting mischievous urban boys, including bootblacks, newsboys, and street toughs, his summer vacations in the Catskills and the Adirondack Mountains inspired a more sentimental view of childhood in a rural setting. In The Cider Mill five girls indulge in the late summer pleasure of the apple harvest. Seated in front of wooden barrels of cider, each bites into a crisp, ripe apple. Every element in the scene alludes to abundance: the overflowing basket in the foreground, the ripening corn in the distance, and the bright fall foliage that hangs like fringe from the trees. With their full, round faces and glowing complexions, the girls seem to embody wholesome health and innocence.