GRAFTON TYLER BROWN (1814-1918)

Grafton Tyler Brown is considered the first African-American artist to paint the region of California and the Pacific Northwest. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to free Black parents, Brown moved to Sacramento, California as a teenager in 1858 and spent the 1860s as a successful lithographer and cartographer in San Francisco. In the 1880s, he adopted painting without formal training and moved to Victoria, British Columbia, where he was inspired by the Cascade Mountains. In 1884 Brown moved back to the United States, traveling from his base in Portland, Oregon to paint such iconic Western locales as Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, and Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks. Although self-taught, Brown’s topographical training allowed him to render precise depictions of the American West on par with his academically trained contemporaries.