Ann Marie Brown

Ann Marie Brown was born in 1888 in Salisbury, Missouri. Early in her artistic career, she was mentored by several noted Missouri artists who significantly influenced her work, including Humphrey Woolrych, Edmund Wuerpel, Joseph Vorst, Mabel Meeker Edsall, Esther Silber Reed and Frank B. Nuderscher. Brown received formal training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Brown worked in a number of different media, including watercolor, oil, and linocut prints. She was also a ceramicist and was a writer for Popular Ceramics magazine for twelve years. Brown was very active professionally and was involved in numerous arts organizations, including the American Artists Professional League, National Ceramic League, the Ozark Artists Association, the American Art Alliance, and the St. Louis Artists' Guild, with whom she exhibited throughout the 1930s. She also served as president of the St. Louis Society of Independent Artists and St. Louis Women Artists.

Brown’s accolades include Second Prize at the Missouri State Fair in 1942, the City Art Museum Henry V. Putzel Prize, and the first Silver Award of Merit at the St. Louis Independent Artists exhibition in 1958-1959.

Brown moved from St. Louis to Florida in 1963. However, in 1966, she donated a number of her works to the St. Louis Public Library, Carondelet Branch, including two oil paintings (Homes on Market near Ewing and House that Jack Built), two watercolors (Dead End of Market and Railroad Tracks and Iron Street in Carondelet) and several linocut prints. Brown died on June 12, 1972, in Memphis, Tennessee.