A. D. O. BROWERE
A LATECOMER TO CALIFORNIA, the New York artist A. D. O. Browere arrived in 1852, after a four-month voyage via Cape Horn. Browere’s first trip to the Pacific coincided with what is coinsidered to be the last years of the Gold Rush, and although would-be miners would arrive for many years, claims were harder to establish and gold more difficult to acquire. Browere’s motives for venturing to California are uncertain; like many other Argonauts, he had achieved some stature in the East (the trip was, after all, costly), but his accomplishments were modest. If he traveled to California for gold, there is little evidence that he worked any claims; if he was seeking prosperity as an artist, he seems to have made little effort to market his paintings to his most likely audience—the newly affluent residents of San Francisco and the mining communities.
The son of a sculptor, Browere exhibited scenes from Rip Van Winkle at the National Academy of Design during the 1830s, and earned an award in 1841 for his Canonicus and the Governor of Plymouth. After that time, however, he was only sporadically represented in National Academy exhibitions, generally with historical canvases. Although the artist moved to Catskill—a site made famous by artists of the Hudson River school—in 1834, he listed his address as Brooklyn in 1844, indicating that he maintained close connections with New York City until at least the mid-1840s.1 In Catskill, a view of which (fig. 62) he painted in 1849, Browere evidently struggled to support his growing family. Employed as a clerk in a drugstore and as a carriage and sign painter, he seemed to have little time for his own painting.2
FIG. 62. A. D. O. Browere, Catskill, New York, 1849. Oil on canvas, 34 × 44 in. Brooklyn Museum of Art, Dick S. Ramsay Fund. 40.881
The promise of wealth may have been the impetus for Browere’s first trip West, and it was long assumed that he headed directly to the mines after arriving in California. A listing for “J. D. Brower,” carriage painter, in the 1852 San Francisco city directory suggests, however, that the artist settled there for some time. He probably did so to earn sufficient money to purchase the costly supplies needed for a journey to the mines.3 Once he was able, Browere seems to have departed for the Sierra foothills.
FIG. 63. A. D. O. Browere, Miner’s Return, 1854. Oil on canvas, 24 × 30 in. Collection of Everett Millard.
Because Browere made two trips to California (between 1852 and 1856 and again from 1858 to 1861) and many of his paintings are undated, it is difficult to determine a definitive chronology for his Gold Rush subjects.4 His first documented California painting, The Lone Prospector (fig. 61), of 1853, is a variation on a contemporary local model—A Miner Prospecting by Charles Christian Nahl and August Wenderoth. Browere most likely met Nahl while he was in San Francisco, and saw A Miner Prospecting there. If not, he knew it from the lithographs that Nahl and Wenderoth made, some of which were hand colored.
Although the central figure, with its outsize head and right foot clumsily placed into the stirrup, is awkwardly drawn, The Lone Prospector is one of Browere’s most engaging figure paintings. The artist closely followed Nahl’s prototype, and the variety and clarity of the flowers in the foreground shows the artist’s interest in horticulture.5 Browere’s interpretation differs from the earlier Miner Prospecting in that Nahl’s Forty-niner is mounted on a handsome white horse leading a pack mule. He has a knife inside his boot and a large bedroll rather than a pick and shovel. In contrast, The Lone Prospector is astride a mule, which is branded with the artist’s initials. Whereas Nahl’s figure appears to glare out at the viewer, Browere’s miner averts his eyes. Despite the absence of any identifiable immediate threat, The Lone Prospector appears wary, reluctant to proceed. His discomfort amidst the verdant landscape sets Browere’s miner apart from Nahl’s, and likewise distinguishes him from contemporaneous representations of mountain men in the West by artists such as Charles Deas and W. F. Tait.6
By the summer of 1854, Browere settled in Columbia, in the center of California’s southern mining region. With a colleague, he purchased a house at the rear of the American Baking Company and advertised a “sign and ornamental painting office.”7 Even though he had decided to set himself up in business in California, Browere’s Miner’s Return (fig. 63), painted that year, suggests that he was profoundly lonely at this time. According to family tradition, the composition shows the artist’s return to Catskill, New York. However, it was painted two years before he went home, so the emotional scene must represent a joyous moment Browere imagined. Here a miner (reputedly a self-portrait) embraces his wife while his daughters and mother rush from the cabin to greet him. The gentleman at the right who looks heavenward and clasps his hands in prayer of thanks for the miner’s safe return has been identified as Browere’s uncle, Solomon Davis.8 Significantly, Browere depicted the culminating episode of the miner’s adventure in a manner similar to his earlier scenes from Rip Van Winkle, with figures clustered in a shallow foreground space that forms a stage for the action. In both this compositional format and his stylized rendering of emotions, Browere adapted approaches from the Düsseldorf school of painting, which would have been familiar to him from the attention being accorded Emanuel Leutze’s work and exhibitions that had been on view in New York since 1850. His use of academic conventions rather than direct observation in developing his narrative canvases reflects Browere’s reliance on models to compose his paintings. As the figures in Miner’s Return were people close to Browere, the artist may have made the composition for his own enjoyment. He does not, however, seem to have exhibited his work in California, nor to have realized many sales. In fact, he apparently took most of his paintings back East following his first stay in the mines.9
FIG. 64. A. D. O. Browere, John C. Duchow, Jr., ca. 1855. Oil on canvas, 30 × 25 in. California Historical Society, San Francisco, gift of Warren R. Howell.
Browere did secure a patron in John C. Duchow Jr., the founder and publisher of the Columbia Gazette, who commissioned Browere to paint a mining scene, and subsequently ordered portraits of himself and of his parents. John C. Duchow, Jr. (fig. 64) is a stiff representation of its subject; surely Browere was more comfortable painting genre scenes and landscapes. Indeed, in contrast, his Miners of Placerville (fig. 65), also painted at this time, is an engaging composition that offers considerable detail as well as insights into a number of mining operations.
Although miners continued to work in Columbia into the 1860s, Browere’s complex painting represents activities more characteristic of the early years of the Gold Rush, when gold was more readily accessible. Browere illustrates many kinds of mining in this canvas; at the center foreground, a miner is panning, at the left, another is working with a pick ax. In the right middle ground, two men are felling a large tree for wood to construct either rockers and long toms or more housing.10 The canvas-covered cabins in the background were prevalent at southern mining sites. Browere conveys the frenzied activity that pervaded mining camps, and acknowledges the necessity for miners to form partnerships to divert rivers and operate equipment, developments that were occurring when he was observing such scenes.
Most likely also dating from this time is Prospectors in the Sierra (fig. 66), one of a number of enchanting landscapes that Browere enlivened with the presence of incidental figures. These compositions show how California’s distinctive geography impressed the artist, and document the appearance of the Sierra foothills during the Gold Rush era.11 They are larger than the artist’s earlier landscapes and in each case, having been painted “at a very unspecific time of day,” suggest that his primary interest was in recording the singular topography rather than in capturing dramatic lighting effects.12
FIG. 65. A. D. O. Browere, Miners of Placerville, 1855. Oil on canvas, 26 × 36 in. National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
FIG. 66. A. D. O. Browere, Prospectors in the Sierra, ca. 1854. Oil on canvas, 35 × 60 in. F. E. Keeler III.
Also associated with Browere’s first journey to California is Jamestown or D. O. Mills’ Mill (fig. 67). This painting, which may date to the mid-1850s, offers an idyllic landscape, the mill being set far into the distance alongside a river. In fact, a driver seated high on a hay wagon is more prominent, giving the subject a rural character uncommon in Browere’s work. The tenderly rendered scene shows similarities with contemporary British landscape painting, and—from the treatment of the branch overhanging the water—may be unfinished.’13
Browere also painted the first, and possibly the second, of three versions of a view of Stockton during his first journey to California. Why he created three nearly identical scenes of this thriving trading center for mining communities along the tributaries of the San Joaquin River is not known. An inscription on the latest of the paintings (1858, Haggin Museum, Stockton) testifies that Browere was working “from a sketch painted on the spot,” and the composition is unique in Browere’s oeuvre in featuring identifiable buildings.’14 The “sketch” to which Browere refers may be the View of Stockton now in the collection of the Oakland Museum of California (fig. 69), which is very similar to Stockton, his most ambitious version, created in 1856 (fig. 68).15
FIG. 67. A. D. O. Browere, Jamestown or D. O. Mills’ Mill, ca. 1855. Oil on canvas mounted on Masonite board, 28⅛ × 38 in. California Historical Society, San Francisco, purchase.
Browere is credited with skillfully portraying a community that burgeoned from a tiny settlement (originally called Tuleburg after the reeds that proliferated in the nearby marshlands) to a bustling trade center. All three views show Stockton once it had become established, with its original canvas structures replaced by more permanent buildings, first of wood, and then—when those proved vulnerable to the rampant fires that continually plagued this area—of brick. There is a brickyard in evidence on the far side of the river.
Although Browere depicts specific structures and a viewpoint “looking east toward the head of the Stockton Channel and the center of town,” he managed to project “an idyllic, picturesque vision of the young city, focusing on those other resources—breathtaking expanses of sky, abundance of fish and wildlife, and a colorful, stable townscape—that might await the visitor hoping to find gold.”16 By its sheer scale, the 1856 painting emphasizes the bright clear sky, with snowcapped Sierra peaks in the distance. Although two fishermen row a boat in the middle ground, and a figure on the shore (which appears only in this version) hauls in a large net, the smooth surface of the water and egret in flight at the right endow the composition with a feeling of calm. With so few boats in the picture—there are two more boats at the left, one half-submerged in water, the other with sails lowered—there is little indication of the activity that the port surely sustained.17
In 1856, Browere returned to Catskill. He may have painted his large View of Stockton there, and certainly completed Mokelumne Hill, 1857 (fig. 70), while in the East. This composition, too, may have been developed from either pencil sketches or small paintings Browere made while in California. The fact that it was not painted from life may account for the lack of incident in the composition, other than the appearance of the red-shirted miner accompanying a mule cart in the foreground. Unlike most of Browere’s other California landscape paintings, which feature waterfalls and fantastic rock forms, Mokelumne Hill shows a serene view across a valley into the Sierra. The ruts in the road and sparse trees indicate the impact of mining activities (including extensive logging to construct housing) on this area, but Browere nonetheless offers a beautiful scene. This painting is reminiscent of the Hudson River school compositions in its organization and details, but offers a more expansive view. Such an approach—certainly stimulated in part by the broad vistas that surrounded him—has been identified as the chief feature distinguishing Browere’s California landscape paintings from his earlier views. And, as with his paintings of Stockton, the quiet view here gives little indication of Mokelumne Hill’s distinction in boasting a fifty-mile canal that brought water to the mine sites or of its thriving population during the early 1850s, when it was home to nearly eight thousand French miners alone.’18
FIG. 68. A. D. O. Browere, Stockton, 1856. Oil on canvas, 36⅞ × 69⅞ in. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum Purchase. 39.3
FIG. 69. A. D. O. Browere, View of Stockton, 1854. Oil on canvas, 16 × 28 in. Oakland Museum of California, Kahn Collection.
FIG. 70. A. D. O. Browere, Mokelumne Hill, 1857. Oil on canvas, 34½ × 40½ in. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
FIG. 71. A. D. O. Browere, The Trail of the ’49ers, 1852 or 1858. Oil on canvas, 33 × 48 in. The Newark Museum, N.J., Edward F. Weston bequest.
Two years later, in 1858, Browere set out again for California, this time traveling by way of Panama. Because he had spent considerable time in mining towns on his earlier trip, he was surely aware of the uncertainties that confronted gold-seekers, particularly late arrivals. His second trip may have been motivated by a desire to make further studies for Gold Rush paintings, or to relive the drama of the historic events in which he had participated.
Although they are undated, Browere may have painted his two scenes of the Chagres route, The Trail of the ’49ers and Crossing the Isthmus (figs. 71 and 73), shortly after he reestablished himself in California. Both paintings show the verdant tropical foliage that inspired awe even in passengers exhausted after their arduous journey from the East.19 In each painting, Browere places the imposing mountain at the center, a device he commonly employed, perhaps to lead the viewer’s eye into space.20 These symmetrical compositions appear idealized, and offer romanticized interpretations of the challenging thirty-eight-mile passage across the Isthmus, which could take early travelers a week or more to negotiate.21 Crossing the Isthmus particularly shows a romanticized view, as the mules carrying the group of would-be miners had been superseded by the Panama Railroad by the time the artist made this trek. Close compositional parallels between Crossing the Isthmus and Thomas Cole’s 1840 painting, The Voyage of Life: Youth (fig. 72), indicate that Browere was still looking to prototypes by other artists to compose his paintings. In choosing Cole’s model, he apparently intended to give his landscape symbolic meaning rather than present a realistic view of a scene he encountered. This approach found favor with local patrons; Crossing the Isthmus was purchased by a collector in California.22 Most likely Browere’s Goldminers of 1858 (fig. 74) was also painted after his return to California. Again, the scene it depicts—a small group of miners taking a break from working a diverted stream—harks back to the beginning of the Gold Rush, suggesting that, as with Crossing the Isthmus, Browere was already painting retrospective views, capturing the flavor of the early years at the mine sites, where—as John David Borthwick and others noted—food was eaten in haste, and many miners gambled or consumed hard liquor when breaks allowed.23 The six figures concentrated in the center foreground against a backdrop (here a washed-away hillside), repeat a compositional scheme for narrative subjects that Browere employed earlier.
FIG. 72. Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Youth, 1840. Oil on canvas, 52½ × 78½ in. Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Museum of Art, Utica, N.Y.
FIG. 73. A. D. O. Browere, Crossing the Isthmus, ca. 1858. Oil on canvas, 33 × 48 in. Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, Calif., gift of the Crocker Art Museum Association.
FIG. 74. A. D. O. Browere, Goldminers, 1858. Oil on canvas, 29 × 36 in. Anchutz Collection, Denver, Colo.
With Goldminers Browere uses figures that appear to be types rather than individuals. Picks, shovels, gold pans, and cookware give insights into the daily lives of the miners who are gathered here. The two cardplayers and the three miners who observe them form the center of attention, and are balanced by the rushing water at the left and the miner preparing food behind. Browere expended considerable care on the background landscape, where four mules—one bearing a red-shirted miner similar to The Lone Prospector he had painted several years earlier—are nearly hidden on the trail above the camp.
FIG. 75. A. D. O. Browere, South of Tuolumne City, 1861. Oil on canvas, 30 × 44 in. Oakland Museum of California, Kahn Collection.
Browere, who is listed as an “artist” in the 1859 San Francisco directory, completed a “large allegorical painting for a San Francisco Odd Fellows’ celebration that year.” By July 1860, however, he had returned to Columbia, and was mentioned in the Tuolumne Courier as “now doing portrait painting, landscapes, fancy and ornamental and decorative painting—Saloon and Housepainting when ordered.”24 It therefore appears that Browere again sought to support himself in the smaller mining communities, and—toward this end—returned to decorative painting. Despite the assessment that “this talented artist, so long identified with the history of Columbia, is now in Stockton, doing very well in his profession,” there is little evidence that Browere achieved success with his painting in California.25 Indeed, only a single painting, South of Tuolumne City, 1861 (fig. 75), was definitely produced during Browere’s second stay in California, and there is little evidence of his activity during this time.26
In 1861, Browere left California permanently to return to Catskill. Little is known of his career after that, although he continued to work, painting signs and register boards as late as 1886.27 He also apparently created some additional California scenes, and is noted as having exhibited such subjects after the Civil War.
Ironically, although Browere often relied on other sources for his compositional schemes and experienced difficulty in successfully integrating his figures and backgrounds, he was an innovator in painting Californian landscape vistas and mining life. He was one of the first to make large oil paintings of the surrounding scenery, and already by the mid-1850s was conscious of the importance of the early days of the Gold Rush and their rapid passing. In creating images of those events at a time when Americans had little interest in the Forty-niners as national figures and disparaged them as “down-at-the-heels Easterners hoping to strike it rich in California,”28 Browere showed foresight. Remarkably, he produced a significant number of Gold Rush subjects, with apparently little support for his efforts. Both his charming landscapes and nostalgic genre scenes anticipate the flourishing of California landscape painting and romanticized depictions of Gold Rush subjects that occurred later, in the 1870s and 1880s.
