Jonathon Brown, Jan 2nd 1994

A Scottish artist, author, and teacher, Jonathon Brown met David Hockney in the 1970s. His text, I Don't Know Much About Art But I Know David Hockney, is a memoir discussing their friendship. Brown spent his early life in Edinburgh, studying at The Edinburgh Academy before attending Cambridge to read Moral Sciences. Though initially devoted to writing, Hockney encouraged him to shift his focus to art. Brown’s self-proclaimed ‘creative self’ first emerged in the 1980s and, having moved to the Alps north of Nice in 1992, he entirely committed himself to his art. In his 25 years at the foot-hills of the Alps, Brown developed a complex style, completing paintings of flowers, his ‘Les Fleurs du Bien,’ graphite portraits, and dynamic landscape pieces. He is most renowned for the latter, which evoke the movement of personal vision and create a sense of travel. These dynamic scenes were shown in 2010 and 2015 at the Musée International d'Art Naïf, Nice, and in 2002 at Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Art Gallery. More recently, Brown has written for newspapers including the Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator, and taken part in interval talks for BBC Radio Three.