Bolton Coit Brown (November 27, 1864 – September 15, 1936) was an American painter, lithographer, and mountaineer. He was one of the original founders of the Byrdcliffe Colony in Woodstock, NY, part of what is now referred to as the Woodstock Art Colony.
Before Woodstock: Stanford and the Sierras
Brown was born and raised in Dresden, in upstate New York. His sister was the scientific illustrator Anna B. Nash. After receiving his master's degree in Painting from Syracuse University, he moved to California in 1891 to create the Art Department at Stanford University. Brown headed the department for almost ten years, but was dismissed in a dispute over his use of nude models in the classroom. Although his own art was heavily influenced by the Tonalist aesthetic, his methods of teaching, which contrasted sharply with the traditional approach at the nearby School of Design in San Francisco, stressed the Impressionist credo of rapid execution of “natural subjects” in the wilderness. Students often visited his studio-home for discussions on various environmental and political causes. In 1898 Brown designed the studio rooms in Stanford's new Art Building, which included such “radical” innovations as “one continuous belt of glass” eight feet high and muted terra cotta and gray tones on the walls. The walls were covered with reproductions and original works “by the avant-garde artists of Paris.” One of his more successful students, the painter Jennie V. Cannon, published reviews of his exhibitions and several short biographies which described a quiet, serious and, compassionate teacher with steadfast principles.
Brown was an accomplished mountain climber and benefited from Stanford's proximity to the Sierra Nevada range, mostly famously explored by John Muir (1838–1914), founder of the Sierra Club, of which Brown was a charter member. Brown was the first to record climbing a group of peaks in the Sierras with, in two instances, his intrepid wife Lucy; his most challenging first ascent was of Mount Clarence King (also known as Mount King) in August 1896. According to the Climber’s Guide to the High Sierra, Brown's ascent of Mount King was the first time advanced aid-climbing techniques were used in North America. Nearby Mount Bolton Brown (13,491 ft) is named after him; Brown also named several peaks in the area of Mount King.
Byrdcliffe
Brown's skills as an artist and outdoorsman brought him to the attention of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead (1854–1929), an aristocratic utopian who developed the concept, and supplied the capital, for the Byrdcliffe Colony. Byrdcliffe was an artists’ colony based on ideals and models provided by John Ruskin (1819–1900) and the English Arts and Crafts movement. Whitehead dispatched Brown on an expedition through the Catskills, scouting locations for three weeks. Brown convinced Whitehead that Woodstock, NY, in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, was where Byrdcliffe should be, although Whitehead had planned on a location further south. Along with fellow artistic spirit Hervey White, also hired by Whitehead, Brown developed and managed the grounds of Byrdcliffe from 1902 to 1903, constructing footpaths, plumbing systems and bungalows. But Brown and White were both, ultimately, unable to sustain working relationships with Whitehead. White left of his own accord; Brown, meanwhile, was fired. Although the initial disputes were over budgets and deadlines, Brown later cited his distrust of the "medieval" intentions Whitehead harbored for the colony.