| Annora
Brown was born near Red Deer, Alberta in 1899. Her father, a member of the
North Western Mounted Police, and her mother, who was one of Fort
MacLeod’s first schoolteachers, raised her in Ft. MacLeod. Once Brown
was old enough herself, she also taught. After four years, however, she chose to attend the Ontario College
of Art in Toronto, her teachers, among others, were Arthur Lismer and
J.E.H. MacDonald. She received many scholarships and graduated with a
diploma in art. In 1929, she taught at Mount Royal College in Calgary, but
decided to return to Fort MacLeod in 1931, where she did fieldwork for the
Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, in the area of art and
handicrafts. From 1945 to 1950, Brown taught at the Banff School of Fine
Arts.
In 1954, Old Man's Garden, was published; it is a book in
which Brown recorded legends and stories of the flora of the Old Man
River, Waterton Lakes National Park, and other areas of Southern Alberta.
She also illustrated children's books.
Brown
was influenced by the surroundings where she grew up: the country around
Fort MacLeod and its people. In her later years she still remembered
hearing the drumming of First Nations groups, rolling across the plains.
She also remembered the stories told by the First Nations, old-timers,
clergymen, and government officials, regarding the exploration and
surveying of the land and the relationships between the First Nations and
settlers. The flowers and plants of the Fort MacLeod area, which she
commonly used as subject matter, also influenced Brown. She tried to paint
the feel of the flowers, as opposed to their biological structure. She had
extensive knowledge of Alberta's flowers, as she traveled throughout the
province, taking long hikes to study different flowers in full bloom, at
numerous times of the year. Her knowledge and talent led the Glenbow
Foundation to commission Brown to paint 200 pictures of different Alberta
wildflowers. It took her three years to complete this assignment, because
so many admirers would buy pieces; in the end, she completed 500 pieces.
Annora Brown, Annora Brown, Sketches From Life,
Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers Ltd., 1981 (1st Edition).
________. Old Man’s Garden, Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons (Canada)
Limited, 1954 (1st Edition).
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