{{Short description|American artist}} {{BLP sources|date=February 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = Kathan Brown | birth_date = {{birth date|1935|4|23}} | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | death_date={{death date and age|2025|3|10|1935|4|23}} | death_place=San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S. | education = Antioch College | occupation = master printmaker, writer, lecturer, entrepreneur | known_for = Printmaking | spouse = {{marriage|Jeryl Parker|1960|1963|end=div.}}<br>{{marriage|Tom Marioni|1983}} | children = 1 }} '''Kathan Louise Brown''' (April 23, 1935 – March 10, 2025) was an American master printmaker, writer, lecturer, and entrepreneur. In 1962, Brown founded Crown Point Press, a fine art print shop specializing in etching, and owned and directed the shop since then.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-kathan-brown-17536|title=Oral history interview with Kathan Brown, 2017 December 15–18|website=www.aaa.si.edu|language=en|access-date=2019-02-21}}</ref> Crown Point Press is widely credited with sparking the revival of etching as a viable art medium.<ref>Tallman, Susan. 1996. ''The Contemporary Print from Pre-Pop to Postmodern''. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson.</ref> Some of the most important artists of our time, including John Cage, Chuck Close, Anish Kapoor, Ed Ruscha, Kiki Smith and Pat Steir, have worked there.
==Early life and education== Brown was born in New York City on April 23, 1935<ref name="obit" /> and grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://art.famsf.org/kathan-brown|title=Kathan Brown|date=2018-09-21|website=FAMSF Search the Collections|language=en|access-date=2019-02-21}}</ref> She received a B.A. from Antioch College and an M.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts.<ref name=":0" /> In addition, she holds Honorary Doctorate degrees from California College of the Arts (CCA) and the San Francisco Art Institute.<ref name=":0" />
==Career== In 1956, Brown left Antioch College in Ohio for one year to attend the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. There, she began to study etching. After graduating from Antioch College in 1958,<ref>{{cite web|url = https://art.famsf.org/kathan-brown|title = Kathan Brown|website = Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) Explore the Art|access-date = 2016-04-26}}</ref> Brown returned to the Central School for another year to fine-tune her technique. In addition, she participated in the Print Workshop at 28 Charlotte Street, run by Birgit Skiöld.<ref name="urlWorkshop Log 1959">{{cite news |url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/archives/ |title=Archive and Library Reading Room Blythe House, V&A, AAD/1997/18/383 |author=Birgit Skiold |year= 1959|work= 1959 Log from The Print Workshop|access-date=2013-04-13}}</ref>
In the summer of 1959, while on a holiday trip to Edinburgh, Brown noticed an old etching press in the backyard of her rooming house. The landlady offered the press to Brown, saying it had been there since World War II. With the etching press in tow, Brown booked passage on a freighter going to San Francisco from Glasgow via the Panama Canal.
In 1962, Brown started Crown Point Press in a storefront space in Richmond, California. The following year she bought a house in Berkeley and ran the printmaking workshop out of her basement. In 1965, Brown began publishing the etching portfolios of Richard Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud. The Press moved into a vacant hat factory on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland in 1971 and then to Folsom Street in San Francisco in 1986. Unfortunately, the Folsom Street space was lost in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. In 1990, Crown Point moved to 20 Hawthorne Street in San Francisco where it resides today.
Over time, Brown shifted much of her focus to writing and left the day-to-day operations of the press to director, Valerie Wade, who is a partner in the business. In 2006, Crown Point began publishing a series of books about printmaking, the ''Magical Secrets'' series. Brown wrote the first book in the series, ''Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life'', which highlights various creative processes artists have embraced while working in the Crown Point studio. ''Art on Paper'' magazine reviewed ''Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively'' saying, “Brown combines printmaking, art history, memoir and how-to inspirational literature to address the creative process. She’s wise, forthcoming and down-to-earth”.<ref>Helfand, Glen. "Magical Secrets About Thinking Creatively: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life, Review." ''Art on paper'', July/August 2006</ref> In 2004, Brown wrote ''The North Pole'', a book detailing her trip to the North Pole through photographs and interviews with travelers, scientists, and a polar archivist. Brown was also the author of a monthly video segment, ''The Three Minute Egg'', where she discusses the creative process.
Over the years, Crown Point's roster has grown to include over 100 artists from all around the world. Crown Point's archives have been held at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco since 1991. A smaller archive is owned by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Crown Point Press celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and its thirty-fifth with a retrospective jointly organized by and shown at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Gerard|first1=Stephen|title=Thirty-Five Years at Crown Point Press|issue=1|publisher=Articulate Contemporary Art Review|date=September 1997|volume=4 |page=12}}</ref> and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Today, Crown Point Press publishes the work of five artists a year, hosts printmaking workshops and publishes a series of books about printmaking. The Press was sixty years old in 2022.
==Personal life==
Brown married Jeryl Parker in 1960 and had a son, Kevin Powis Parker, in 1961.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SPOTLIGHT-Kevin-Parker-His-pastime-became-his-2526986.php|title=SPOTLIGHT / Kevin Parker: His pastime became his life's work|last=Abate|first=Tom|date=2003-11-12|website=SFGate|access-date=2019-02-21}}</ref> Parker and Brown amicably separated in 1963 and later divorced.
In 1983, she married conceptual artist Tom Marioni.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Writer|first=Jesse Hamlin, Chronicle Staff|date=1997-09-28|title=Crowning Achievement / For 35 years, print publisher has pressed the point that etching is serious art|url=https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Crowning-Achievement-For-35-years-print-2804647.php|access-date=2021-08-16|website=SFGATE|language=en-US}}</ref> They make their home in San Francisco. She died at her home in the San Francisco Bay Area on March 10, 2025, at the age of 89.<ref name="obit">{{cite web|title=Kathan Brown, Acclaimed Fine Art Printmaker, Dies at 89|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/arts/kathan-brown-dead.html|date=April 1, 2025|last=Williams|first=Alex|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 2, 2025}}</ref>
==Published work==
=== Books by Brown ===
* {{Cite book|title=John Cage: Etchings 1978-1982|last=Brown|first=Kathan|publisher=Crown Point Press|year=1982|isbn=1891300083|location=San Francisco}} * {{Cite book|title=Ink, Paper, Metal, Wood: Painters and Sculptors at Crown Point Press|last=Brown|first=Kathan|publisher=Chronicle Books|year=1996|isbn=0811804690|location=San Francisco}} * ''Why Draw a Live Model?'' Crown Point Press, 1997 * {{Cite book|title=Why Draw a Landscape?|last=Brown|first=Kathan|publisher=Crown Point Press|year=1999|isbn=1891300113|location=San Francisco}} * {{Cite book|title=John Cage Visual Art: To Sober and Quiet the Mind|last=Brown|first=Kathan|publisher=Crown Point Press|year=2001|isbn=9781891300165|location=San Francisco}} * {{Cite book|title=The North Pole|last=Brown|first=Kathan|publisher=Crown Point Press|year=2004|isbn=1891300180|location=San Francisco}} * {{Cite book|title=Magical Secrets About Thinking Creatively: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life|last=Brown|first=Kathan|publisher=Crown Point Press|year=2006|isbn=3791336541|location=San Francisco}} * {{Cite book|title=Know That You Are Lucky|last=Brown|first=Kathan|publisher=Crown Point Press|year=2012|isbn=978-1891300240|location=San Francisco}}
=== Contribution by Brown ===
*''Changing Art: A Chronicle Centered on John Cage'', in ''Tri-Quarterly 54'', Spring 1982. Reprinted in ''A John Cage Reader'', Wesleyan University Press, 1983 *''The Cambridge Companion to John Cage'', (contributor), ed. David Nicholls, Cambridge University Press, 2002 *''The Uncertainty Principle,'' The Guardian (UK), March 8, 2002 *{{Cite book|title=Magical Secrets about Line Etching & Engraving: The Step-by-Step Art of Incised Lines|last=Brooks|first=Catherine|publisher=Crown Point Press|year=2007|isbn=978-1891300202|location=San Francisco}} Edited, and with an appendix on printing by Kathan Brown *{{Cite book|title=Magical Secrets about Aquatint: Spit Bite, Sugar Lift & Other Etched Tones Step by Step|last=York|first=Emily|publisher=Crown Point Press|year=2008|isbn=978-1891300219|location=San Francisco}} Edited, and with an appendix on printing by Kathan Brown
==Honors and awards==
*1965 – Award for Etching, California Society of Etchers *1983 – Arts Commission, City of San Francisco, Award of Honor *1985 – Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, California College of Arts and Crafts<ref name=":0" /> *1990 – Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, San Francisco Art Institute<ref name=":0" /> *1993 – Outstanding Achievement Award, ArtTable, Inc., Northern California Chapter *1997 – Cyril Award for Business Excellence, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco, California
==References== <References/>
==External links== *[https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-kathan-brown-17536 Oral history interview with Kathan Brown, 2017 December 15-18] from Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution *[http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/brown_kathan.pdf SFMOMA 75th Anniversary Oral History Project, Kathan Brown, Founder, Crown Point Press] from 2007, from Regional Oral History Office at the Bancroft Library *[http://www.crownpoint.com/ Crown Point Press website]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Kathan}} Category:1935 births Category:2025 deaths Category:American printmakers Category:American women writers Category:Antioch College alumni Category:Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area Category:American women printmakers Category:21st-century American women artists Category:Cage scholars