Bolton Brown

Bolton Coit Brown (November 27, 1864 – September 15, 1936) was an American painter, lithographer, and mountaineer. He was one of the original founders of the Byrdcliffe Colony in , part of what is now referred to as the Woodstock Art Colony.

Brown was born and raised in Dresden, in upstate New York. After receiving his Masters in Painting from Syracuse University, he moved to California in 1891 to create the Art Department at Stanford University. Brown headed the department for almost ten years, but was dismissed in a dispute over his use of nude models in the classroom. Although his own art was heavily influenced by the Tonalist aesthetic, his methods of teaching, which contrasted sharply with the traditional approached at the nearby School of Design in San Francisco, stressed the Impressionist credo of a rapid execution of “natural subjects” in the wilderness. Students often visited his studio-home for discussions on various environmental and political causes. In 1898 Brown designed the studio rooms in Stanford’s new Art Building, which included such “radical” innovations as “one continuous belt of glass” eight feet high and muted terra cotta and gray tones on the walls. The walls were covered with reproductions and original works “by the avant-garde artists of Paris.” One of his more successful students, the painter Jennie V. Cannon, published reviews of his exhibitions and several short biographies which described a quiet, serious and, compassionate teacher with steadfast principles.

Brown was an accomplished mountain climber and benefited from Stanford’s proximity to the Sierra Nevada range, mostly famously explored by Sierra Club founder John Muir (1838–1914). Brown was the first to record climbing a group of peaks in the Sierras with, in two instances, his intrepid wife Lucy; his most challenging first ascent was of Mount Clarence King (also known as Mount King) in August 1896. According to the Climber’s Guide to the High Sierra, Brown’s ascent of Mount King was the first time advanced aid-climbing techniques were used in North America. Nearby Mount Bolton Brown (13,538 ft) is named after him; Brown also named several peaks in the area of Mount King.

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