Ree Brown Memorial
1508 11th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122
USA
Our beloved friend and artist Ree Brown passed away Monday February 10, 2014 after a long battle with cancer. He was 87. He and his partner, artist Jay Steensma, were fixtures in the avant-garde art scene in Seattle from the 1970’s till Jay’s death in 1995, and Ree for twenty more years after that.
In the mid 1970’s Ree began to draw, and then paint and sculpt. He was self-taught making mostly small portraits of birds, cats and people. In the late 1980’s, Ree started to show in Seattle with MIA Gallery, then at Garde Rail Gallery and most recently at Vermillion.
Ree is also included in 20th Century American Folk, Self-Taught, and Outsider Art by Betty-Carol Sellen and also featured in several documentaries about outsider art including this one on youtube:http://youtu.be/
He also did a popular cover of The Stranger featuring a black cat. Ree was a mentor and friend to many artists, collectors, and curators including Wes Wehr, Joe Reno, Mark Mueller, Joe Max Emminger, Morris Graves and Alice Wheeler.
A memorial is being held at Vermillion Art Gallery and Bar on March 22, 2014 from 5-8pm. Light snacks will be provided and a small exhibit of some of Ree’s artwork will be on view. We are all grateful to have been a part of Ree’s life.
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