Hilda Rue Wilkinson Brown

Hilda Rue Wilkinson Brown was born in Washington D.C in 1894. Brown is the only one of five grandchildren to have remained in Washington, D.C., where her great-grandmother first moved after being freed from slavery in 1835. This neighborhood would become the subject of many of Brown's paintings. Because of its proximity to local schools, LeDroit Park attracted black educators and scholars, fostering a community of intellectuals. One such community member was the renowned African American writer Langston Hughes, who lived in LeDroit Park in the 1920s. Although he left before Brown moved to the neighborhood, she was acquainted with his family. In her spare time she enjoyed gardening and making pottery and clay sculptures. According to her niece, Brown had learned how to sculpt and make pottery when she attended Columbia University, and would gift these objects to friends or use them herself to decorate her home. A sociable woman, Brown was also a member of the Coo Coos, a local chapter of the social organization The Girl Friends, a social club for African American women. Hilda Wilkinson Brown and Schley Brown did not have children of their own, but they were very close to Hilda's maternal niece, artist Lilian Thomas Burwell. Schley Brown was named Burwell's godfather when he and Hilda married. Burwell attended Pratt Institute, a university in Brooklyn, New York, on a scholarship. Hilda and Schley Brown financially supported Burwell's education by paying the portion of her tuition that was not covered by the scholarship, and by purchasing her art supplies. Burwell's parents had concerns about how she could achieve financial stability in the unpredictable art world, but Brown persuaded them to allow Burwell to continue her passion by suggesting she teach art. Lilian Thomas Burwell guest curated Hilda Wilkinson Brown's posthumous retrospective at the Howard University Gallery in 1983. Burwell has reflected on her aunt's life and career in articles for Washington History and The International Review of African American Art. At the end of her life Brown became legally blind, leaving her bedridden until the time of her death. She died of congestive heart failure in 1981 at the age of 86 in her home in Washington, D.C. == Education ==

Hilda Wilkinson Brown graduated high school from Miner Normal School, which was later renamed Miner Teacher's College and now called the University of the District of Columbia. According to her niece, Brown also attended M Street High School, but the amount of time she spent here is not specified. She earned her Bachelor's in Education at Howard University and her Masters from Columbia University. She also studied at Cooper Union, The National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York City. == Career ==

Miner Normal School In 1923, after graduating from Cooper Union in New York City, Brown started her first teaching job at her alma mater—Miner Normal School in Washington D.C. There she coordinated a two-year art history, design and fine arts curriculum and eventually chaired the department. In 1929 she integrated fine art and industrial arts into the school's teacher training program. From 1932 until her retirement in 1961, Brown created set and costume designs for the school's theater productions, created graphics for the school, and designed its seal. She was an assistant professor at the time of her retirement. Public schools While she was heavily invested in Miner Normal School, Brown also worked with public schools throughout Washington D.C. In 1933 she introduced the "modern" approach to art education in segregated Negro schools, which championed individual creativity rather than the mimetic approach to teaching art that was usually taught. She lectured at Howard University and other schools throughout Washington D.C. on African art heritage, art in interior design, and art education for elementary school teachers. Other Brown was on the first board of directors of the Barnett-Aden Gallery, a private art gallery in Washington, DC, which was one of the first galleries to show work by black artists. == Artistic career ==

Hilda Wilkinson Brown was a highly skilled painter and printmaker, but she was aware of the restrictions being a woman in her era placed on her art making. Lilian Thomas Burwell recalls that Brown felt women's domestic responsibilities prevented them from making art as full-heartedly and self-centeredly as male artists. While Brown recognized the limitations this posed to her and other female artists' chances of recognition, she was passionate about domestic work and teaching, and was unwilling to compromise these passions to advance her artistic career. In 1940 she made six linoleum block prints for the first edition of E. Franklin Frazier's book The Negro Family in the United States. The author, her brother-in-law, wrote in her copy that her work "made evident what (he) tried to write". Style Even Brown's artistic production reflects her passion for education. In a review of her exhibition at Howard University Gallery, Paul Richard of the Washington Post said "hers are images that teach." Curator of the National Museum of American Art Merry Forester wrote that Brown "grappled with the problems of Fauvism, Cubism and Expressionism," reflected the influence of Realism, Precisionism and Conceptualism, and that "she worked in a style that only few in her time were courageous enough to use." == Selected exhibitions ==

• Exhibited at Howard University Gallery of Art, 1932. • Still Life with Tulips was exhibited at Howard University Gallery of Art in 1940. • Hilda Wilkinson Brown: A Washington Artist Rediscovered. Posthumous Retrospective at Howard University, 1983. == Selected collections ==

• Oak Bluffs from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago • The Family from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art • Third and Rhode Island in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum • Her work was included in the Barnett-Aden Gallery Collection. • Ada was in the collection of Hampton University, but was later donated to the Harmon Foundation. == References ==