25 Facts About Deborah Brown

Deborah Brown is well known in Ireland for her pioneering exploration of the medium of fibre glass in the 1960s and established herself as one of the country's leading sculptors, achieving extensive international acclaim.

Deborah Brown was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 27 September 1927.

Deborah Brown's grandmother is credited with encouraging her artwork and supplying her with paints and materials from a young age.

Deborah Brown credited her Mother for instilling in her a love of animals, and along with the rural life of picking potatoes, cutting hay and turf, left an indelible mark on her work.

Deborah Brown had her first informal art lessons from James Humbert Craig who lived locally.

Deborah Brown was initially educated at Belfast Royal Academy and towards the end of the war she studied at Richmond Lodge School after the family had returned to Belfast.

In preparation for attending art college, Deborah Brown was instructed in art-history by James McCord.

Deborah Brown studied landscape painting at Belfast College of Art in 1946 under Romeo Toogood and Newton Penprase before enrolling at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin in 1947, to study painting for three years.

Deborah Brown joined a group with artist and musician Michael Morrow and friends, where she played bass viol, having been classically trained in piano and cello at a young age.

Deborah Brown stayed in Paris for three months lodging with a French family.

Deborah Brown visited the Jeu de Paume and the Louvre, and became acquainted with the work of Picasso, Giacometti, Matisse and de Stael amongst many others.

Deborah Brown was later asked by Kenneth Jamison, the Director of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, to select a committee to oversee an arts bursary scheme set-up in memory of Berger Hammerschlag and which aided many younger artists to travel and to purchase equipment and materials.

In 1960, Deborah Brown was appointed one of seven trustees of the newly formed Lyric Players Trust including TP Flanagan and John Hewitt.

Deborah Brown travelled throughout the northern Italy in the 1960s, to Rome, Sienna, Florence and Ravenna, where she studied the works of Botticelli, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Fontana.

Deborah Brown became a member of the Free Painters and Sculptors and the Women's International Art Club in the early 1960s, and worked in her father's office to supplement her income.

Deborah Brown went on to take her professional exams in Chattels and Fine Arts, providing her with an in depth knowledge of the history of furniture, silver, porcelain and painting, as well as the laws of surveying, bookkeeping and property.

In 1969 Deborah Brown had a solo exhibition at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland gallery.

Deborah Brown donated a picture to an exhibition to raise funds for victims of civil disturbances in Belfast in the autumn of 1969.

Deborah Brown served as chairperson of the Visual Arts Committee of the Arts Council throughout the 1970s.

In 1973, Deborah Brown joined Theo McNab in representing Ireland at the Cagnes-sur-Mer International Festival.

Two years later Deborah Brown was invited to show with ROSC alongside 7 other Irish artists including Felim Egan, Barrie Cooke and Sean Scully which resulted in a further exhibition in the following year with the same artists, in the Armstrong Gallery in New York.

Around the same time Deborah Brown retired from her father's firm and relocated back to Cushendun where she converted two outhouses into a studio.

In 2016, Deborah Brown was the recipient of the Mullan Gallery Prize for the best sculpture at the Annual Royal Ulster Academy exhibition at the Ulster Museum for her work The Visitor.

Deborah Brown died on 8 April 2023 in Donegal, having spent many years at the end of her life in the town of Ramelton.

Deborah Brown's work is included in many collections in Ireland and abroad, including the Ulster Museum, Raidio Teilifis Eireann, Bank of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and the National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland.