Ann Eckert Brown has been researching, executing, and teaching eighteenth and nineteenth-century ornamental painting techniques since the 1960s. Included in her restoration commissions is the painted interior of a Gothic Revival chapel in Newport, Rhode Island. Her ornamented furnishings have been widely exhibited, including two solo exhibitions in the 1990s – one featuring the gilded surface and semi-precious faux finishes and the other “Penwork”, a technique developed in Georgian England to replicate Indian Vizagapatam ivory. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including “Yankee” and “Early American Life” which named her a craftsman of the year in 1993.
She has presented numerous programs and exhibits on 18th & 19th century American wall and floor painting, including those at Old Sturbridge Village, MA and the Farmers” Museum, Cooperstown, NY.
Articles by Brown have appeared in several publications including Folk Art magazine of the American Folk Art Museum, NYC; American in Britain, a publication of the American Museum in Britain, Bath, England; and Early American Life.
Brown in May, 2008, received the “Research Award” from the Historical Society of Early American Decoration, for her first two books, American Wall Stenciling 1790-1840 and American Painted Floors before 1840.
Her third book Painted Rooms of Rhode Island – Colonial and Federal, released in 2012, contains over 200 pages of descriptive text illustrated by over 250, mostly color, pictures. For purchasing information, see www.anneckertbrown.com.
