{"id":35007,"date":"2014-02-12T08:00:06","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T08:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=35007"},"modified":"2017-03-10T19:18:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T19:18:01","slug":"san-francisco-lithographer-african-american-artist-grafton-tyler-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=35007","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Lithographer: African American Artist Grafton Tyler Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco Lithographer: African American Artist Grafton Tyler Brown<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

University of Oklahoma Press<\/a>
\n2014
\n264 pages
\n8.5″ x 11″
\nIllustrations: 20 b&w and 125 color illus.
\nHardcover ISBN: 9780806144108<\/p>\n

Robert J. Chandler<\/a><\/strong>, Retired Senior Research Historian
\nWells Fargo Bank<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A lavishly illustrated biography of an often overlooked artist and his work<\/em><\/p>\n

Grafton Tyler Brown<\/a>\u2014whose heritage was likely one-eighth African American<\/a>\u2014finessed his way through San Francisco<\/a> society by passing<\/a> for white. Working in an environment hostile to African American achievement, Brown became a successful commercial artist and businessman in the rough-and-tumble gold rush era<\/a> and the years after the Civil War<\/a>. Best known for his bird\u2019s-eye cityscapes, he also produced and published maps, charts, and business documents, and he illustrated books, sheet music, advertisements, and labels for cans and other packaging.<\/p>\n

This biography by a distinguished California historian gives an underappreciated artist and his work recognition long overdue. Focusing on Grafton Tyler Brown\u2019s lithography<\/a> and his life in nineteenth-century San Francisco, Robert J. Chandler offers a study equally fascinating as a business and cultural history and as an introduction to Brown the artist.<\/p>\n

Chandler\u2019s contextualization of Brown\u2019s career goes beyond the issue of race. Showing how Brown survived and flourished as a businessman, Chandler offers unique insight into the growth of printing and publishing in California and the West. He examines the rise of lithography, its commercial and cultural importance, and the competition among lithographic companies. He also analyzes Brown\u2019s work and style, comparing it to the products of rival firms.<\/p>\n

Brown was not respected as a fine artist until after his death. Collectors of western art and Americana now recognize the importance of Californiana and of Brown\u2019s work, some of which depicts Portland<\/a> and the Pacific Northwest<\/a>, and they will find Chandler\u2019s checklist, descriptions, and reproductions of Brown\u2019s ephemera\u2014including billheads and maps\u2014as uniquely valuable as Chandler\u2019s contribution to the cultural and commercial history of California. In an afterword, historian Shirley Ann Wilson Moore<\/a> discusses the circumstances and significance of passing in nineteenth-century America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grafton Tyler Brown\u2014whose heritage was likely one-eighth African American\u2014finessed his way through San Francisco society by passing for white. Working in an environment hostile to African American achievement, Brown became a successful commercial artist and businessman in the rough-and-tumble gold rush era and the years after the Civil War. Best known for his bird\u2019s-eye cityscapes, he also produced and published maps, charts, and business documents, and he illustrated books, sheet music, advertisements, and labels for cans and other packaging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1245,11,8,17,6462,20],"tags":[455,16524,16523,16522,9568,16525,1770],"class_list":["post-35007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-biography","category-books","category-media-archive","category-monographs","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-california","tag-grafton-tyler-brown","tag-robert-chandler","tag-robert-j-chandler","tag-san-francisco","tag-shirley-ann-wilson-moore","tag-university-of-oklahoma-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35007"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52298,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35007\/revisions\/52298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}