William Henry Brown was born in Oakland. By the mid-'50s, when he crossed paths with the other artists of the "6" gallery, he'd already been quite busy. He had studied at San Francisco State University, the American Art School in New York and under Elmer Bischoff at CSFA, and then having served in Korea. Brown was married to fellow artist Joan Brown at the time the "6" opened. Both artists were in the thick of the San Francisco arts community, living at 2322 Fillmore with a number of other painters and writers. Like many of the young artists of the period, William Brown was influenced by both Abstract Expressionism and by the first wave of Bay Area figurative artists and he worked largely with figurative imagery during the mid and late 1950s. During the 1960s, after he had moved to England, Brown's style became more hard-edged and less tied to Bay Area sources.

Back to Bay Area Figurative Movements