George Elmer Browne

George Elmer Browne was a popular American Impressionist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was also a skilled teacher and administrator, active in many capacities in the international art world.

A likely influence on him, especially the way he handled skyscapes, was English painter John Constable.

Browne was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1871. After attending public school in Salem and revealing artistic talent at an early age, he studied at the Museum School of Fine Arts and the Cowles School of Art in Boston. Like so many of his time, he went to Paris where he attended the Academie Julian as a student of Jules Lefevbre and Tony Robert-Fleury.

Returning to the United States, he set up a studio in New York City. He won his first award, a bronze medal, at the Mechanics Fair in Boston in 1895, and he founded the Browne Art Classes. Many summers were spent at Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Browne also became highly regarded in France, where he was named Officer of Public Instruction and Fine Arts. In 1926, he was made Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. Browne died in Provincetown in 1946.

ref. askart.com