Charles Francis Browne, “Peaceful Valley,” Oil on Canvas, c. Early 20th Century

oil painting

A pastoral French landscape scene. Water in the foreground shimmers with the cut-off reflection of a handful of poplar trees. A thicket of smaller trees grows in the background. To the front of this thicket, a small, fenced-in area demarcates a pasture, which confines a few grazing cows. Mountains, blanketed by trees, loom in the background. The sky is intensely blue with a mix of puffy and wispy clouds that magnify the vibrant blues and greens of the valley. The peaceful grandeur of mountain scenery is typical of some of Browne’s best work.

38 1/4 x 48 1/4″

(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.