Art of gold

Despite barely having sat in a saddle, not to mention being colour blind, Paul Brown was an equestrian illustrator par excellence, explains Arthur C Liese

Opposite ‘The Poor Sport’ (1933–35, graphite) This page The thrill of skijoring, captured with customary skill by Paul Brown in a drawing from Brooks Brothers’ limited-edition calendar from 1945

With his slightly rumpled appearance, deep baritone voice and warm demeanour, artist Paul Brown earned the affection of the equine set – even though he never owned a horse or even sat on one. Though he was colour blind, he was legendary in equestrian circles because the fluid motion in his work defined the soul and personality of the animal.

It was a fortuitous set of circumstances that transported Brown from his birthplace in Minnesota, in 1893, to Long Island. It was in Garden City that he and his wife, Sallie, raised three children. And it was there he earned his artist’s reputation while doing most of his life’s work on the nearby polo fields and horse-show grounds of Old Westbury and Piping Rock. His early artistic brilliance was nurtured at the High School of Commerce in New York City. However, although he was a keen art student, his academic work suffered owing to lack of interest. Bored by the slow pace and focused instead on the excitement of starting his own business, he was lured away in 1911, at the age of 18, before graduation.

Brown’s young commercial-art business was interrupted by army service in 1914, at the beginning of World War I. Discharged in 1918, he returned to Garden City to resume his life and his work with clients that included Harper’s, The Sportsman’s, Collier’s, The New York Times and Mobil Oil. In 1927, his career path took a dramatic second turn, when, as chief illustrator, he helped launch Polo magazine, with Peter Vischer as editor.

It was an exciting time – Charles Lindbergh had just crossed the Atlantic and Long Island society was enjoying an unparalleled sports boom. The imposing European-influenced architecture of the patrician castles on the Gold Coast provided the backdrop for an era that would influence and inspire American sporting art and literature for years to come, and Brown played a central role.

Ironically, it was 1930, the year after the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began, when he first cultivated what would be a fruitful relationship with Eugene V Connett III’s Derrydale Press. Connett first became aware

of Brown’s horse-related art via his illustrations in Polo and The Sportsman’s. People do not play the game because they can’t fi nd a regular doubles partner; there is a complex mix of sensually driven emotions that seduce players and gallery alike. Their runaway passion and addictive allure provide an enormous technical challenge that few artists master, but Brown had developed a distinct style that froze emotion, captured the excitement and recorded the history of polo for posterity.

Polo survived the depths of the Depression, both the sport and the accompanying lifestyle relying on a poetic licence that demanded to be recorded on canvas. This golden era was defi ned by the crack of a mallet echoing across Long Island Sound and by horsemen the likes of Tommy Hitchcock and Pete Bostwick, and it was chronicled by The Sportsman’s. Brown sketched the action from the sidelines in works that defi ned the standard of excellence of equestrian art by withstanding the brutal test of time.

He demonstrated a knowledge of equine anatomy and plays of the game more intimate than even the most dedicated veterinarian or player. All his horses consistently display a uniquely detailed cinematography of action in whichever medium they are depicted: watercolour, ink, pastel, drypoint or crayon. The perfect proportions of these complex athletic creatures are on a par with those of Franklin B Voss and Sir Alfred Munnings.

Opposite, clockwise from top left An illustration from Hits and Misses (1935); a 1945 advert for Brooks Brothers; the artist in the 1930s. This page ‘Kenny Hits One – 3rd Period, 3rd Game’ (1928, watercolour over ink); ’International Field, Meadow Brook Club’ (1939, lithograph)

Brown was the ideal choice to undertake the set of four hand-coloured aquatints entitled American Polo Scenes the Derrydale Press marketed in 1930. ‘Down The Field’, ‘On The Boards’, ‘The Save’, and ‘The Goal’ were produced in an edition that was not to exceed 250, but, owing to the depressed economy, it was not fully subscribed, with fewer than half completed.

Brown’s first book illustrations appeared in the 1929 Derrydale publication of The Hitchcock Edition of the Sporting Works of David Gray, but 1930 marked the acceleration of Brown’s sporting art, book and magazine production. Peter Vischer then selected him to illustrate nine volumes of Record of Hunt Race Meetings in America (1931-1939), after which he produced a plethora of steeplechase-related art.

For several years, Derrydale prolifically advertised another set of four limited-edition, hand-coloured steeplechasing aquatints: ‘The Meadow Brook Cup’, ‘Maryland Cup’,

From top ‘Take the Man’ (1928, coloured pencil); ‘Kenny – 1st Goal, 2nd Game: Argentina vs USA, Copa de las Americas’ (1928, watercolour)

‘New Jersey Cup’ and ‘Brookline Hunt Cup’. Inexplicably, however, only the Meadow Brook Cup was produced and, inconsistent with company records, only three of the aquatints are known to exist.

Meanwhile, Connett had contracted with Brown to produce the most famous and collectible books of his Derrydale career: Gentleman Up, Aintree: Grand Nationals – Past & Present (both 1930), and Hits and Misses (1935). After the first two were published, he followed with his first for children, Pony Farm (1948). In total, for Derrydale and other publishers, he illustrated and wrote 32 books, and illustrated another 100 by other authors.

The Derrydale publications and The Sportsman’s illustrations soon caught the attention of Brooks Brothers, the oldest men’s and women’s clothier in the United States. From a contract signed in October 1933, and continuing right up until his death, Brown produced the art for a series of the company’s advertisements, as well as Christmas cards, and gifts such as glassware, matchboxes, lighters, plates and calendars, all of which have since become extremely collectible.

Driven by the particularly enthusiastic reception his work had received from Brooks Brothers’ customers, Connett planned a grand presentation for a set of fox-hunting aquatints by Brown. It was magnificent and without rival in any of his work to that point. The format was unique, the plates measuring 8 x 22in. The first three, ‘Hoick! Hoick! Hoick!’, ‘Music Ahead’ and ‘Pressing Him’ depict the chase. The fourth, ‘Kennel Bound’, depicts the weary pack returning from the hunt. The edition was planned not to exceed 250, and Connett’s records indicate that at least 122 were sold. The quality of this set, he remarked, exceeded his plans – they are truly magnificent.

As for polo art, the 1939 aquatint entitled International Field was the most iconic piece Brown ever produced. It captures an event at the Meadow Brook Club that gathered the best American players of the era – Winston Guest, Cecile Smith, Tommy Hitchcock, Billy Post, Stewart Iglehart and Mike Phipps – and the very aura of the Gatsby era. It is rare and enormously collectible.

The approach of World War II limited sales at the Derrydale Press and ultimately closed the company, in 1942, when it was still under Connett’s leadership. This was largely due to the unavailability of the unique, heavyweight, deckle-edged paper that was custom-made by hand in war-ravaged Britain. The best museum-quality stock available at the time, it was also used for the hand-coloured aquatints by Brown that were produced by the Sporting Gallery and Bookshop Inc in New York City.

Unlike the three sets of four fox-hunting aquatints Derrydale published by Franklin B Voss (Fox Hunting in America), Edward King (American Hunting Scenes) and Somerville & Ross (The Irish RM), the set by Brown was never given a title. As a result, many dealers are unaware they even form a quartet and they remain the least available and consequently most sought after. Nonetheless, it is his little-known drypoints that remain the most elusive and collectible examples of his life’s work.

Paul Brown continued to work until he succumbed to a heart attack on Christmas Day, 1958. The Sporting Gallery and Bookshop Inc represented him until his death.

Arthur C Liese is the president and managing director of the Sporting Gallery and Book Shop Inc. He is the leading expert on 20th-century American sporting art during the Golden Era of Sport (1927-1941) and a published author.

With thanks to Jeanne Chisholm and the Chisholm Gallery (chisholmgallery.com), the leading global stockist of Paul Brown artwork

‘Paul Brown is responsible for my lifelong, fulfilling and expensive love affair with thoroughbred horses. Aged 12, I bought my first Brown illustration from a Mrs Ann Stradling, who came from a Philadelphia Main Line family. Her Museum of the Horse was filled with generations of East Coast horse-society collectables. During my eighthgrade lunch break, I would visit the museum every day and stare at Paul Brown’s work. The small illustration she sold me for a pittance portrays a classic thoroughbred.

‘Brown’s work still inspires me – he was able to convey indescribable equestrian character, complete with all its beauty and frailty, fear and courage. Remington, Russell and Borein did not look upon horses in a particularly generous manner – Brown’s depiction is sensitive, and much of his literary illustration work is devoted to illuminating the special bond between human and horse.’

‘My first exposure to Brown’s work was in the early 1980s, when I responded to a classified ad in the US players’ edition of Polo magazine and received in the post an equine-cartoon calendar depicting riotously funny calamities. The most memorable showed a feckless player being pulled out of his saddle when his mallet is caught up in his pony’s untied tail.

‘We still have 10 of the 12 months framed in our barn office at Fair Hills Polo and Hunt Club in Topanga, California. So-called art-collector mavens have chastised us, saying that, by separating the calendar, we have destroyed its potential value. Oh well! We still really enjoy looking at the caricatures – every horseman, after all, can recognise the folly portrayed.

‘Our polo-playing family’s continuing attraction to Brown’s work is down to its perfect form and its energy. Any player passionate about our sport could benefit greatly from studying his superb and succinct portrayals.’

‘Paul Brown offered a unique perspective on what many regard as the golden age of polo. He demonstrated such a masterful hand, not only for horse and human figures, but also for the dynamics of the game, capturing its spirit and feel like no other contemporary artist.

‘There is something about the art of an illustrator that I find very compelling – he or she is trained to tell a story visually, and Paul Brown’s work conveys a story in every single frame.’

‘Brown is generally acknowledged as the first artist to accurately portray the polo pony in action. This ability to capture an action scene featuring both mount and rider in unusual – and sometimes contorted – positions was his trademark. He made a point of studying everything about horses: their hoof prints in various gaits, their position prior to a jump and how they landed, and so forth.

‘His style has a calculated simplicity and a casual appearance, but every detail is very carefully contrived and executed. He used his wonderful powers of observation, drew heavily on his copious notes and accepted the benefits of the camera only to cement his ideas; the rest was down to practice and care.’

‘As a child, I read everything of Paul Brown’s I could find – I wrote to him to tell him how much I liked his work and he wrote back. That meant a great deal to me. My all-time favourite is Silver Heels, of which I own not one but two copies. My late husband had my first copy bound in leather with a raised relief on the front cover. He also bought me many other Brown books and several prints, and I had a set of 24 Brown dinner plates that I gave to Kauffman’s to sell – I never saw them again when the company went under.

‘The Lairds in Silver Heels were my fantasy family when I was growing up – they offered a stark contrast to my alcoholic, widowed mother and one brother. I still read a chapter whenever I want to be soothed and cosseted.’

‘From 1933 to 1958, Paul Brown executed many drawings for Brooks Brothers. Most interesting to me was a gift given to me by the great-granddaughters of Francis G Lloyd, a former Brooks president who’d started at the firm as a boy of 12 during the 1863 draft riots. The gift was a letter sent by Brown to their father, Winston, during World War II, when Winston was a bombardier pilot. The letter, ‘written’ in 31 drawings over as many pages, was Brown’s way of helping him answer the question, ‘How does one go from being the pilot of a war plane to being the pilot of a horse again?’ As acts of insight and tenderness go, it’s unsurpassed.

‘Winthrop Holley Brooks, chairman of the board, thought him superb at horses and dogs, and good at men, but commented that ‘we keep him away from women pretty much – his women are not so hot, though he can do an occasional tweedy girl, or one in jodphurs’. When we lost Paul, we lost a true friend of the brand.’