Andrew Brown
Haida
(1879-1962)
Captain Andrew Brown was born in 1879 and was active primarily in the first half of the 20th century. He is known for his distinctive carving style, which broke with the traditional Haida conventions of bilateral symmetry, creating instead asymmetrical pieces representing both abstracted and naturalistic figures. Brown explored themes of transformation in traditional Haida stories, incorporating them into his revolutionary style.
Brown had a friendship with Canadian curator and anthropologist, Marius Barbeau. Barbeau addressed Brown’s work in his early writings on argillite carvings and collected his work for several Canadian museums. This promotion from Barbeau allowed Brown to become one of the most well-known and extensively collected Haida artists of the 20th century. Brown died in 1962 at the age of 83.
