Brown studied Spanish literature at Dartmouth College and spent a year abroad in Madrid. While in Spain, he became fascinated with the painter Velázquez, which inspired a lifelong interest in Spanish art. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1960 and continued on to Princeton University, where he received his PhD in 1964 with a dissertation titled "Painting in Seville from Pacheco to Murillo: A Study of Artistic Transition."
Academic career
Brown began his teaching career at Princeton in 1965. In 1971, he received the Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize of the College Art Association of America and was promoted to associate professor. Two years later, he became the director of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University's graduate program in art history. He was appointed professor in 1977. At the IFA, Brown promoted the study of Spanish art, a relatively neglected field in the American academy. During the last decade, he has expanded his interests to viceregal Latin American art, particularly the painting of New Spain.
Curating
Brown has curated and co-curated several pioneering exhibitions throughout his career. While a faculty member at Princeton, he organized "Jusepe de Ribera: Prints and Drawings" at the university's museum, which featured several Spanish drawings from its collection. He has continued to organize shows focusing on Spanish drawings, including 1976's Murillo & His Drawings, also held at the Princeton University Art Museum, and "The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya," held at The Frick Collection in 2010. Brown has had a long association with The Frick Collection, co-curating several shows at the institution, including "Goya's Last Works" of 2006. In his review of the exhibition, Andrew Schulz commented that: "Brown and Galassi did a marvelous job of assembling works from public and private collections in North America and Spain that covered the full range of late production: portraits in oil, ivory miniatures, black crayon drawings, and lithographs." Schulz concludes: "Their landmark exhibition and catalogue will provide the point of departure as we continue to gain insights into the last works of this singular artist." Reflecting his more recent interest in the art of the Spanish viceroyalties, Brown organized the 2010-2011 traveling exhibition "Pintura de los reinos. Identidades compartidas en el mundo hispánico" on view at the Museo Nacional del Prado and Palacio Real in Madrid and the Palacio de Iturrbide in Mexico City. In 2013, he co-curated "Chefs d'oeuvre de l'art mexicain au musée du Louvre" with Guillaume Kientz.
Selected publications
Italy and Spain, 1600-1750: Sources and Documents, 1970
