Vivian Browne's(1929-1993) varied career spanned more than three decades, from her earlyportraits and landscapes in the late 1950s and early '60s, her Little Menseries of 1966-69, to her final San Joaquin and King's Canyon paintings of thevery early 1990s, completed just before her death. This highly active careerwas framed by Browne's lasting political engagement and activism, that includedbeing an initial director of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC),born out of a response to the Metropolitan Museum's failure to include a singleBlack Harlem-based artist in its 1969 exhibition, Harlem on My Mind, and heractive memberships of Where We At (WWA), the Women's Caucus for Art (WCA), andthe feminist art collective Heresies, from the early 1970s until her death in1993.This volume presentsabout 62 paintings, prints, and works on paper across several major bodies ofwork, alongside ephemera highlighting Browne's enduring activism and teachingwork. Drawing upon previously unknown works and archives that have recently becomeavailable, this is a significant contribution to the history of twentiethcentury American art.
