Art collector dies aged 91

AJN STAFF

ARTIST and art-collector Dr Joseph Brown died this week aged 91.

Born in Lodz, Poland in 1918, Dr Brown migrated to Australia in 1933, settling in Carlton.

Enamoured by art, he attended evening classes at the Working Men’s College (now RMIT), shortly thereafter, receiving a scholarship to Brunswick Technical Art School, which he attended three nights a week while working for a fashion house in Bourke Street.

In 1967, he gave up his work in the fashion industry, establishing himself as an art-dealer with a gallery in Collins Street.

In 2004, Dr Brown donated a collection valued at more than $30 million, to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). In telling The AJN about this donation in 2004, he said, “I wanted to give the entire collection as a gift to the nation”.

He had previously donated more than 450 pieces to public galleries over a 40-year period, including a piece painted in 1857 valued at more than $3 million, which he donated to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra upon its opening by Queen Elizabeth in 1982.

A year later he auctioned more than 200 paintings and sculptures left over from his collection. In the auction catalogue, director of the NGV, Dr Gerard Vaughan wrote that “The Joseph Brown Collection was recognised as the most outstanding¬† private collections of Australian art every assembled in this country”.

For his work in the arts and philanthropy Dr Brown was awarded an OBE and an AO as well as honourary doctorates from Monash, Melbourne and La Trobe universities.