Gordon H Brown Archive

Gordon Harold Brown was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1931. Trained as a librarian, he worked at the Alexander Turnbull Library, the library at Elam School of Fine Arts, and at the Auckland Art Gallery Research Library. He was Curator of Pictures at the Hocken Library and the director of both Waikato Art Museum and Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui. Since 1977 he has been a free-lance writer and art critic, publishing, with Hamish Keith, the first book to survey the history of painting in New Zealand and, in 1984, the extensive and seminal monograph, Colin McCahon: Artist. Awarded the OBE and an Honorary Doctorate from Victoria University of Wellington, Brown is also an artist with works in private and public collections.

This archive consists of original manuscript material, exhibition catalogues and ephemera, reviews, essays, artwork lists, scrapbooks, journal articles, and correspondence. The material is art-related and much of it pertains to Colin McCahon.