Qcc Artist Directory

Nancy Thompson Brown (deceased)

drawing, mixed media, painting

A beloved wife’s work lives on

Gallery

About the Art

Bill and Nancy Brown were loving companions for over 50 years. Her work still crowds the walls of her studio, where Bill hosts collectors old and new.

Nancy expressed herself prolifically. From primitive to modern art, she pushed herself with passion. She knew her famous contemporaries; once sitting on the lap of Salvador Dali. Nancy’s abstract paintings, monotypes and collages are often thought of as mystical and spiritual works. She received many awards and much recognition over the years from outstanding jurors, writers and critics.

The art she created in northern New Mexico signaled a shift in her work. The high desert was greatly inspirational. Influenced by the great abstract painters, Nancy began exploring non-figurative work, and her art became more about the color of feelings, her palette becoming more translucent and atmospheric. The vastness of the horizon was now her ocean.

Most of her works are small, and on canvas. Nancy was quoted years ago when asked to describe her art, “These intimate collages are but faint glimpses of long ago happenings. They reflect relationships, influences, happy moments and growing awarenesses in my life – small ‘traces’ of things past.”

Bio

Nancy and Bill Brown met on the coast of Maryland, where Nancy was born and raised. Together they sailed boats and raised dogs, surrounded by the mystical landscapes and dreamy shores of the Atlantic.

Nancy became familiar with northern New Mexico after winning several fellowships from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos. During that time she became fascinated with the mountains, the light, and uncluttered spaces, establishing professional relationships with painter Agnes Martin and sculptor Alan Houser.

The high desert claimed the couple for good in 1996, a move made to be closer to her son. “We were fish out of water,” Bill says, “two old souls and a dog. We built our home—the main room is an art studio with the majestic Ute Mountain standing in our window.”

Nancy studied at the Abbott School of Art in Washington, D.C. and also the Maryland Institute of Art and the Corcoran Museum School of Art, studying with the Washington Color School Painters. At her longtime home, Monhegan Island, Maine, she purchased the cottage-studio originally built by one of Mongegan’s early women artists. Here she painted, exhibited her work, and held workshops in collage, painting and mixed media. Nancy was one of the founders of Women Artists of Monhegan Island.