Charles Francis Browne, “The Big Oak,” Oil on Paper Board, c. 1920

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This is an autumn scene of a footpath winding through a wooded area. The tree leaves are brown, orange, and red. Yellow accents from bushy growth and stray flowers are scattered throughout the area. Most trees are small, but one larger tree sits in the center of the canvas. Sunlight filters through the dying leaves causing areas of grass to appear vividly green.

The probable date of this painting (1920) indicates that it was done after Browne had a stroke in 1919.

Dimensions:
13 3/4″ x 10″
Charles Francis Browne
(1859-1920)
More about the artist

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.

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