Kathan Brown

Kathan Brown (born 1935) is an American printmaker, writer, lecturer, and entrepreneur. Brown founded Crown Point Press, a fine art print shop specializing in etching, in 1962 and has owned and directed it since then. Crown Point Press is widely credited with sparking the revival of etching as a viable art medium. [Tallman, Susan. 1996. "The Contemporary Print from Pre-Pop to Postmodern". New York, NY: Thames and Hudson.] Some of the most important artists of our time, including John Cage, Chuck Close, Anish Kapoor, Ed Ruscha, Kiki Smith and Pat Steir, have worked there. Brown was born in New York City and grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. She received a BA from Antioch College in Ohio and an MFA and an Honorary Doctorate from the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland. In addition, she holds an Honorary Doctorate from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Career

In 1956, Brown left Antioch College in Ohio for one year to attend the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. There, she began to study etching. After graduating from Antioch, Brown returned to the Central School for another year to fine-tune her technique.

In the summer of 1959, while on a holiday trip to Edinburgh, Brown noticed an old etching press in the backyard of her rooming house. The landlady offered the press to Brown, saying it had been there since World War II. With the etching press in tow, Brown booked passage on a freighter going to San Francisco from Glasgow via the Panama Canal.

In 1962, Brown started Crown Point Press in a storefront space in Richmond, California. The following year she bought a house in Berkeley and ran the printmaking workshop out of her basement. In 1965, Brown began publishing the etching portfolios of Richard Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud. The Press moved into a vacant hat factory on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland in 1971 and then to Folsom Street in San Francisco in 1986. Unfortunately, the Folsom Street space was lost in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. In 1990, Crown Point moved to 20 Hawthorne Street in San Francisco where it resides today.

In recent years, Brown has shifted much of her focus to writing and left the day to day operations of the press to director Valerie Wade who is a partner in the business. In 2006, Crown Point began publishing a series of books about printmaking, the "Magical Secrets" series. Brown wrote the first book in the series, "Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life", which highlights various creative processes artists have embraced while working in the Crown Point studio. "Art on Paper" magazine reviewed "Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively" saying, “Brown combines printmaking, art history, memoir and how-to inspirational literature to address the creative process. She’s wise, forthcoming and down-to-earth”. [Helfand,Glen. "Magical Secrets About Thinking Creatively: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life, Review." "Art on paper", July/August 2006] In 2004, Brown wrote "The North Pole", a book detailing her trip to the North Pole through photographs and interviews with travelers, scientists, and a polar archivist. Brown is also the author of a monthly video segment, "The Three Minute Egg", where she discusses the creative process.

Over the years, Crown Point’s roster has grown to include over 100 artists from all around the world. Crown Point’s archives have been held at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco since 1991. A smaller archive is owned by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Crown Point Press celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and it’s thirty-fifth with a retrospective jointly organized by and shown at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Today, Crown Point Press publishes the work of five artists a year, hosts printmaking workshops and publishes a series of books about printmaking. The Press will be fifty years old in 2012.

Personal life

Brown married Jeryl Parker in 1960 and had a son, Kevin Powis Parker, in 1961. Parker and Brown amicably separated in 1963 and later divorced. In 1983, she married conceptual artist Tom Marioni. They make their home in San Francisco.

Published Writing

*"Changing Art: A Chronicle Centered on John Cage", in "Tri-Quarterly 54", Spring 1982. Reprinted in "A John Cage Reader", Wesleyan University Press, 1983
*"Ink, Paper, Metal, Wood: Painters and Sculptors at Crown Point Press", Chronicle Books, 1996
*"Why Draw a Live Model?" Crown Point Press, 1997
*"Why Draw a Landscape?" Crown Point Press, 1999
*"John Cage Visual Art: To Sober and Quiet the Mind", Crown Point Press, 2000
*"The Cambridge Companion to John Cage", (contributor), ed. David Nicholls, Cambridge University Press, 2002
*"The Uncertainty Principle," The Guardian (UK), March 8, 2002
*"The North Pole", Crown Point Press, 2004
*"Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life", Crown Point Press/ Prestel Publishing, 2006
*"Magical Secrets about Line Etching & Engraving: The Step-by-Step Art of Incised Lines", by Catherine Brooks. Edited, and with an appendix on printing by Kathan Brown, Crown Point Press, 2007
*"Magical Secrets about Aquatint: Spit Bite, Sugar Lift & Other Etched Tones Step by Step", by Emily York. Edited, and with an appendix on printing by Kathan Brown, Crown PointPress, 2008
*"Overview", (regular contributor), the Crown Point Press newsletter

Public Lectures

*Akron Art Museum, Ohio
*Bayley Art Museum, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
*Brown University, Providence
*California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco
*Cincinnati Art Museum
*Detroit Institute of Arts
*Des Moines Art Center
*Georgia Museum of Art, Athens
*Indianapolis Museum of Art
*Minneapolis Museum of Art
*Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
*Museum of Modern Art, New York
*National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
*Oakland Museum, California
*Portland Art Museum, Oregon
*Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
*Tacoma Art Museum, Washington
*Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Honors and Awards

*California Society of Etchers, Award for Etching, 1965
*Arts Commission, City of San Francisco, Award of Honor, 1983
*California College of Arts and Crafts, Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, 1985
*San Francisco Art Institute, Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, 1990
*ArtTable, Inc., Northern California Chapter, Outstanding Achievement Award, 1993
*San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Cyril Award for Business Excellence, 1997

References