BROWNLOW, George Washington (1835-1876)

Genre, portrait. landscape and religious painter in oil modeller. He was born at NEWCASTLE the son of a cordwainer, and received his first tuition in art at the Government School of Design in the town under William Bell Scott (q.v.). At the age of twenty he was awarded a gold medal for his work as a student, and as a result of this achievement came to the notice of his future principal patron, the Rev. J. St. Clere Raymond, of Belchamp Hall, Belchamp Walter in Essex. The first portrait painted by Brownlow was of Raymond, and when his patron some time later succeeded to the Belchamp estate he induced his protege to settle in a cottage at Belchamp Walter. Brownlow meanwhile had enrolled as a student at the Royal Academy Schools, and made such good progress that by 1858 he was exhibiting at both the British Institution and the Suffolk Street Gallery. By 1860 he had commenced exhibiting at the Royal Academy, remaining a regular exhibitor there and at the Suffolk Street Gallery until a year before his death. His exhibited work included many genre subjects, with such titles as: Daddy 's Coming, The Mother's Lesson, and The First Tiff, but he also exhibited many homely Scottish and Irish cottage scenes and occasionally showed portraits and pure landscapes.

As a relaxation Brownlow was especially fond of painting the portraits of children at Belchamp Walter engaged in play and other activities. and frequently modelled in clay. Among his less typical work in painting was the series of panels for the pulpit and the front of the altar of the local church. His work was also in some demand for reproduction. examples being used for works published by his patron, and Fulcher's Pocket Book and Miscellany: the latter publication used as its frontispiece an engraving of Brownlow's last, and largest work: The Moorhen Nest which now hangs in Sudbury Old Town Hall. One of his best known works was his Earl y Days of the Ettrick Shepherd, which was exhibited at NEWCASTLE in 1866. at the "Exhibition of Paintings and other Works of Art" at the Town Hall, and again, in 1878, at the exhibition of works by local painters. At the town's Central Exchange Art Gallery. Brownlow died at Sudbury, in Suffolk, but was buried in the village of Belchamp Walter, Essex, where he had spent much of his time from the middle 1860s.  A window was later erected to his memory in the church there, its execution entrusted to the stained glass manufactory of William Wailes (q.v.). Brownlow's work has become increasingly appreciated in recent years, his Cadogan Pier,  Chelsea, was singled out for comment and illustration in Satcheverell Sitwell's Victorian Narrative Pictures, 1969, and in 1981 his The Village Schoolroom established a record price for his work of £ 14,500. He was the younger brother of Stephen Brownlow (q.v.).

Brownlow Exhibits at Royal Scottish Academy
10 South Parade, Queen's Elm, Brompton, London and
12 Antigua Street, Leith Walk, Edinburgh

1859 
(1) A staunch adherent of the Covenant.
(2) A rustic Penelope at Tombour work.
(3) The abode of the poor scholar at Alloway - Ayrshire.
(John Murdoch instructing Robert Burns in his lessons)
(4) The Ettrick Shepherd receiving his first impressions from his mother.
(5) Interior of the Auld Clay, Biggin. (Birthplace of Robert Burns)

1860
(6) Edinburgh Castle from the Grassmarket.
(7) Residence of the Archbishop of St Andrew. Blackfriar's Wynd and Royal Mint, Cowgate, Edinburgh.
(8) The stolen bird and the gypsy girl.
(9) A relic of old Edinburgh.
(10) Sir Walter Scott when a young boy at Prestonpans.

Belchamp Walter
1869 (II)
Scene at Stonehaven Jail during the persecution of the Scottish Episcopal Church in the year 1746

Brownlow Exhibits at Royal Academy
South Parade, Queen's Elms, Brompton, London.
1860
(1) The Mother's lesson. Cottage interior at Wishaw, Lanarkshire.
(2) Century's great revivalist preaching at Epworth church, Lincolnshire.

14 Anderson Street, Chelsea
1861
(3) A Claddagh fisherman's fireside.

Belchamp Walter
1865
(4) Straw plaiting. School in Essex.

15 Great James' Street, Bedford Row.
1866
(5) A Findon fisherman's fireside.

Farm Lodge. Belchamp Walter.
1869
(6) The first lesson in straw plaiting.
1872 
(7) The last stile homewords.
1875
(8) The sunny hours of childhood.