Archives of American Art

A Finding Aid to the Milton Wolf Brown Papers, 1908-1998, in the Archives of American Art

Summary

Collection ID:
AAA.browmilt
Creators:
Brown, Milton Wolf (Milton Wolf), 1911-1998
Dates:
1908-1998
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
26 Linear feet
0.225 Gigabytes
Repository:
The papers of art historian and educator Milton Wolf Brown date from 1908 to 1998 and measure 26.0 linear feet and 0.225 GB. The collection documents Brown's career through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, publishers, colleagues, artists, museums, and art organizations, travel journals, files for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, exhibition, research, teaching, and organization files, printed and digital material, and scattered photographs. A large portion of this collection consists of writings by Brown including notebooks, draft writings for books and other publications, lectures, and his writings as a student.

Scope and Content Note

Scope and Content Note
The papers of art historian and educator Milton Wolf Brown date from 1908 to 1998 and measure 25.8 linear feet and 0.225 GB. The collection documents Brown's career through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, publishers, colleagues, artists, museums, and art organizations, travel journals, files for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, exhibition, research, teaching, and organization files, printed and digital material, and scattered photographs. A large portion of this collection consists of writings by Brown including notebooks, draft writings for books and other publications, lectures, and his writings as a student.
Biographical material includes academic records, travel documents, financial documents, Brown's military records, and a transcript of a 1997 interview. Correspondence is with students, museums, universities, publishers, art organizations, and others. The bulk of these letters document Brown's professional activities, but also found are scattered letters from friends, artists, and colleagues such as Russell Lynes, Stanley Meltzoff, Louis Lozowick, Erwin Panofsky, and Paul Sachs.
This collection also contains 33 detailed travel journals written primarily by Milton Brown's wife, Blanche, documenting their travels in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world. Within the writings series are notebooks from the period that Brown was a student and while traveling in Europe in 1959 and 1960; book project files, which include draft writings as well as related correspondence, research material, notes, photographs and other material. Files are found for American Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Decorative Arts, Photography (1979), American Painting, From the Armory Show to the Depression (1955), The Story of the Armory Show (1963, 1988 2nd ed.), and other books. Among the writings are files for lectures written by Brown; essays, articles, and scripts written for various publications; general research notes and student writings; and writings by others sent to Brown for review and feedback.
Brown maintained a set of files documenting his work on the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, which consist of correspondence, drafts, reports, and research materials, including notes on twenty meetings with Mrs. Prendergast. Exhibition files document Brown's work as curator on several major exhibitions, including a Jacob Lawrence exhibition at the Whitney Museum, and his contributions to others. Also found here are three interviews of Milton Brown and Marcel Duchamp concerning the 50th Anniversary of the Armory Show and anniversary exhibition. Research files include notes, research material, and printed material on various art-related subjects that were maintained by Milton and Blanche Brown for regular use for lectures, teaching, and writing projects. Brown's teaching files contain scattered lecture notes, syllabi, correspondence, faculty records, and other materials from his time at CUNY, Brooklyn College, and other visiting professorships. Organization Files contain correspondence, reports, planning documents, and event materials. These records document his membership or advisory role in various organizations such as the Archives of American Art and Century Association.
This collection also contains printed material, such as exhibition announcements, newsletters, brochures, journals, event programs, and magazine and newspapers clippings compiled by Brown. Scattered photographs include nine photographs of Milton Brown, a few photographs of friends, and photographs of artwork.

Arrangement

Arrangement
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
  • Missing Title
  • Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1932-1998 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
  • Series 2: Correspondence, 1908, 1934-1998 (Boxes 1-3; 1.8 linear feet)
  • Series 3: Travel Journals, 1941-1996 (Boxes 3-4; 1.6 linear feet)
  • Series 4: Writings, circa 1929-1990s (Boxes 4-13, 25; 8.7 linear feet)
  • Series 5: Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, circa 1952-1990 (Boxes 13-14, 25; 1.8 linear feet)
  • Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1962-circa 1997 (Boxes 14-16, 28; 2.0 linear feet, ER01; 0.225 GB)
  • Series 7: Research Files, circa 1930s-1986 (Boxes 16-19; 3.0 linear feet)
  • Series 8: Teaching Files, circa 1946-1993 (Boxes 19-21; 2.0 linear feet)
  • Series 9: Organization Files, 1959-1995 (Boxes 21-22; 1.3 linear feet)
  • Series 10: Printed Material, 1925-1990s (Boxes 22-24, 26, 27; 3.2 linear feet)
  • Series 11: Photographs, circa 1956-1990s (Boxes 25, 27; 0.2 linear feet)

Biographical Note

Biographical Note
Milton Wolf Brown (1911-1998) was an art historian and educator in New York City.
Known to his friends as "Mainey," Brown was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1911. At a young age he intended to be a painter and studied with Louis Lozowick. However, instead of attending art school, he entered New York University to study education and eventually received his master's and doctorate in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts. While there he took courses with Walter Friedlander, Erwin Panofsky, and Mayer Schapiro. He also received fellowships to the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1934 and Brussels in 1937, and studied from 1938-1939 at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. In 1938 he married fellow student Blanche Levine. After serving in World War II, he began teaching in the art department at Brooklyn College in 1946. There he developed a specialization in American art history and his doctoral dissertation, American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression, was published in 1955. In 1963 he participated in the fiftieth anniversary exhibition of the 1913 Armory Show. The publication of his book Story of the Armory Show coincided with this event.
In 1971 Brown established the graduate program in Art History at the City University of New York, which became preeminent in the areas of modern art and American art history. During the 1980s he remained a resident professor at CUNY, though he retired in 1979, and he held visiting professorships at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. From 1983 to 1987 he had a senior fellowship at Williams College for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project.
Over the course of his career Brown curated exhibitions, including an exhibition on the works of Jacob Lawrence and The Modern Spirit: American Painting and Photography, 1908-1935, and wrote for numerous publications. He also served as an active member of several professional societies. Brown was close friends with art scholars and artists, such as Jack Levine, Moses and Raphael Soyer, Ad Reinhardt, and Paul Strand. In 1991 he returned to painting landscape watercolors, and had the opportunity to exhibit his work before his death in 1998.

Administration

Author
Erin Corley
Sponsor
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Provenance
The Milton Wolf Brown papers were donated in 2000 and 2001 by Blanche R. Brown, Brown's widow. Three reel-to reel sound recordings were lent for duplication to cassette and transcript in 1986 by Milton Brown. A cassette copy of the Martha Deane interview was donated in 2006 by Milton Brown's estate, via Naomi Rosenblum. Additional material was donated in 2002 and 2004 by Naomi Rosenblum, executor for the estate of Blanche R. Brown, who died in 2002.
Processing Information
The Milton Wolf Brown papers were fully processed by Erin Corley in 2010 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Born-digital material was processed by Kirsi Ritosalmi-Kisner in 2020 with funding provided by Smithsonian Collection Care and Preservation Fund.

Using the Collection

Preferred Citation
Milton Wolf Brown papers, 1908-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Restrictions on Access
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Terms of Use
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Related Material
Also at the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Milton Wolf Brown, conducted in 1976 by Paul Cummings.

Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Occupation Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Occupation Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Travel diaries Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Articles Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Interviews Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Essays Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Drafts (documents) Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Transcripts Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Photographs Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Art, American History Sources Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Notebooks Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lectures Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Scripts (documents) Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Occupation Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Century Association (New York, N.Y.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Panofsky, Erwin, 1892-1968 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Meltzoff, Stanley Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lynes, Russell, 1910-1991 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lozowick, Louis, 1892-1973 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Armory Show 50th anniversary exhibition (1963 : New York, N.Y.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Brown, Blanche Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Brooklyn College -- Faculty Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Prendergast, Charles, 1863-1948 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Archives of American Art Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Sachs, Paul J. (Paul Joseph), 1878-1965 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Prendergast, Maurice Brazil, 1858-1924 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Whitney Museum of American Art Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
City University of New York -- Faculty Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

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