Charles Francis Browne, “Rock River Valley, Oregon,” Oil on Canvas, 1915

oil painting

This downriver view of Oregon depicts Margaret Fuller Island from the south lawn of Ganymede–site of the Heckman summer home, in what is now Lowden Park. The foreground in this painting is dense with bushes and small trees, which screen the view of the river and islands. A few of the nearest trees have lighter green leaves. Rust-colored plants grow in the grass in front of some lighter-colored bushes on the left. Trees carpet the islands, and the riverbank beyond, giving a soft, rounded appearance. The light-blue sky is filled with clouds. One cloud is nearer than all the rest and has a mix of dark and light areas. Its top goes off the canvas, which gives the sky depth, and emphasizes the distance of the other clouds.

20 x 28″

(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.