Margaret Fitzhugh Browne
| Margaret Fitzhugh Browne | |
|---|---|
Self Portrait
|
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| Born |
June 7, 1884 West Roxbury, Massachusetts |
| Died | July 11, 1972 (aged 88) Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Massachusetts Normal Art School, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School |
| Known for | Painting |
Margaret Fitzhugh Browne (June 7, 1884, West Roxbury, Massachusetts – January 11, 1972, Boston, Massachusetts ), was a painter of portraits, indoor genre scenes, and still lifes, although portraits dominated her output.
Browne was the second child of Cordelia Brooks Browne and James Maynadier Browne. She had three sisters (Katherine, Brooks, and Emily) and one brother (Causten). Her older sister, Katherine, illustrated children’s verse written by her mother’s second husband, David K. Stevens.
Browne studied at the Massachusetts Normal School from 1904 to 1909, where one of her teachers was the popular artist Joseph DeCamp. She attended the Boston Museum School in 1909 and 1910, receiving instruction from Edmund Tarbell and Frank Benson. During this period, she also received private instruction from the color theorist Albert Munsell and the landscape artist Richard Andrew.
Browne’s career spanned all aspects of the art world. She had a studio in the Fens and one in Annisquam, an attractive part of Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she also taught classes. She began her career as a portrait painter in 1910, was the art editor of the Boston Evening Transcript from 1919–20, and authored a book, Portrait Painting, in 1933. In the book, she advised portraitists to work quickly to capture their sitter’s features and not exhaust them. She was a firm adherent of realism in art, and was quoted referring to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's 1940 Picasso exhibit as "an exhibition of crazy stuff." She also founded the Boston branch of the Society for Sanity in Art and served on the Advisory Board of Josephine Logan's Chicago branch, an organization promoting the retention of traditional values and styles in art.
From early 1944 through May 1945, Browne served the USO as a portrait sketcher, volunteering three times a week, as her diaries, now archived at the Boston Public Library, indicate. Photographs of over 120 of these charcoal portraits of servicemen and women were made and presented to her. Many of the photographs carry the names of the servicemen and women, and a few wrote a heartfelt note to her on the back. Similar wartime efforts have been documented and help elucidate the support that Browne and others gave to the war efforts.
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