Matilda Browne (1869-1947) was an American painter and sculptor of animals, flowers and landscapes. She was born in Newark, New Jersey. She showed signs of a promising artistic talent early in her life. Luckily, Thomas Moran, a Hudson River School painter was her neighbour and she grew up watching his works. Matilda’s parents supported her in developing her budding talent. She later studied with many teachers, including Thomas Moran, such as Eliza Pratt Greatorex and Tonaist Charles Melville Dewey. Animal painter Carleton Wiggins and Julian Duper were other teachers of Matilda Browne.

European Study Tour

Matilda’s mother took her to Europe on a study tour from 1888 to 1892 when she was still very young and this tour helped Matilda a lot in shaping her talent. She studied in Paris which had become the centre of the art world by then. As a result, Matilda participated in her first-ever major exhibition at the National Academy of Design when she was just 12 years of age. Matilda also spent time studying in Holland which was famously known as a hotbed of animal and floral paintings. She visited Puerto Rico in 1912 found vibrant images of the local scenery highly appetising for a painter.

Animal Paintings, her favourite subject

Matilda’s favourite subject for painting was animals, especially cows and other livestock. Ber numerous animal paintings demonstrate her sympathy for and understanding of the animals. Browne was often compared to better-known French animal painter Rosa Bonheur. Although Browne had spent time in France, it is doubtful if the two ever meant during their lifetime. Like Bonheur, Browne got livestock models from Parisian animal markets. Matilda’s painting ‘At the Watering Hole’ (1905) is one of the finest examples of her speciality in this subject.

Floral paintings, her other speciality

A colourful garden landscape full of flowers was another favourite subject of Matilda. Experts say that Matilda’s style of painting is best described as Impressionism although her pastoral animal scenes recall French Barbizon animal sculptures. The garden scenes filled with abundant colourful flowers and fluffy greenery that span the Connecticut countryside were the subjects that were appealing to her the most. Browne took great pleasure in populating her garden paintings with human figures, especially those of her friends or their young kids. Besides human figures, charming and stylish homes also fill out her paintings.

‘Cinnias and Gladiolas’

Floral still life paintings were another subject of Matilda’s speciality. The styles of brushwork employed by her while painting floral subjects were different from the ones she used in her landscape paintings. Matilda gave ultimate attention to every minute detail of each of the flowers in the floral presentations. Her work ‘Zinnias and Gladiolas’ (1926) is the finest example of her speciality in this field of art. Browne’s other great work ‘Peonies’ is another excellent example of the artist’s focused attention to the multitude of pink-and-white flowers that span the green landscape. The human figure of a lady appears engrossed in appreciating the verdant beauty of the flowers.

Griswold’s Boarding House

Matilda Browne began being counted as one of the young and successful artists. The kind of respect that she commanded among the artists was unimaginable for a female artist at that time. In her adulthood, Matilda moved to Connecticut, where she painted in the Cos Cob and Old Lyme art colonies. At Old Lyme, she was the only female artist accepted into the inner circle living and working at Florence Griswold’s boarding house. The group that was otherwise typically unfriendly to female artists respected Browne. She even had the honour of painting ‘two peaceful cows in a bucolic landscape’ on the door in Miss Florence’s house. Matilds’s great painting skill made the other artists take notice of her.

Her Marriage and Oblivion

As a successful artist, Matilde Browne won numerous awards in her lifetime. These awards include a medal at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. She exhibited in many important shows including the Paris Salon. She married Frederick Van Wyck in 1918. Matilda did all the illustrations for the book called Recollection of an Old New Yorker written by her husband Frederic Van Wyck in 1932. She was one famous American female painter who was celebrated during her lifetime but forgotten quickly afterwards. Sadly, this does not normally happen so frequently in the case of male painters as in the case of female painters and Matilda Brown is a shining example.

Gender discrimination

It is great news that art history celebrated other well-known female Impressionist artists like Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot and a very few others. It is also quite equally, or probably more, disappointing to know that very few people know about the equally, or even more, well-known artists like Matilda Browne. Experts feel that the reason for Matilda fading into obscurity might be because she was a ‘double minority, one as gender and another as her nationality. It is noticeable that books about female impressionists omit her, presumably, because, firstly, she was American and, secondly, the books on American Impressionists almost always focus on male artists.

Matilda’s Collections

Most of Matilda Browne’s paintings are in private collections. The Florence Griswold Museum is the best place to look for her paintings. Her Paintings: Matilda Browne’s well-known paintings include ‘Peonies‘ (1907), ‘In the Garden’ (1915), ‘At the Watering Hole’, (1905), ‘In Voorhee’s Garden’ (1914), ‘Saltbox by Moonlight’, ‘Miss Katharine Ludington’s Garden, Lyme’ (1914), ‘Miss Florence’s’, (which are all in Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut), ‘Floral Still Life’, ‘Four Barnyard Cowsoil’, ‘Little Holstein Bull’, ‘Coastal Landscape’, ‘Zinnias’, etc.