Charles Francis Browne, “October-Oregon, Illinois, 1918,” Oil on Canvas, 1918

oil painting

A view of the Rock River focuses on a yellowish-green tree slightly left of the center of the canvas. A small grass path, marked by wheel ruts, curves off to the right, and disappears in the tall brown-and-gold-tinged vegetation. Other trees, slightly further back in the painting, are dominated by reds and oranges. The clear blue water of the Rock River peeks out from behind the central mass of trees. A small building sits on the river’s edge. Beyond the river, an expanse of dark, orange-leaved trees extends to meet the horizon. The cloud-screened sky is pale blue. This is one of a group of paintings by Browne that, in 1918, won a Silver Medal from the Chicago Society of Artists. This is also one of Browne’s last paintings.

35 7/8 x 47 7/8″

(1859-1920)

One of the original members of the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony, Browne was its premier landscape artist. Browne studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and then was a student of Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Afterward, he pursued further studies in Paris. In 1890 he moved to Chicago. There, he taught painting and lectured on art history at the Art Institue. Browne served as president of the Chicago Society of Artists and director of the Western Society of Artists.

Browne was married to one of Lorado Taft’s sisters and was the father of the child born at the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony. The couple divorced in 1908. During the summer of 1919, while at the Eagle’s Nest Camp, Browne was stricken with paralysis. He spent the autumn near Chicago, then went back to his mother’s home in Waltham, Massachusetts, where he died the following March.

Another one of his Ogle County landscapes, “Moonlight, Oregon, Illinois,” belongs to the Union League Club of Chicago.