Biography
David Brown (b. Romsey, Hampshire, UK 25 November 1925 - d. 5 May 2002) was an art curator and veterinary researcher. After studying art history at the University of East Anglia in 1970, Brown took a post as a reserach assitant at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and curated exhibitions of work by Duncan Grant, Roger Hilton and Richard Long. In 1974 after fourteen months in Edinburgh, Brown moved to London where he was appointed Assistant Curator in the Modern Collection at the Tate Gallery. He curated many exhibitions during his time at Tate including a major St Ives exhibition in 1985. He was also a Contemporary Art Society Committee Member (1977-87). He was married firstly to Jean Lucas, who painted his portrait, now in Southampton City Art Gallery and his second wife was Liza Wilcox, who died in a car crash in Nigeria in 1967. Brown was also a prolific collector of 20th-century art and bequeathed, also in memory of his second wife, many works from his collection to a small number of public institutions including Tate, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the British Museum and Southampton City Art Gallery whose own collection he helped to form. David and Liza Brown’s diverse collection included figure studies and landscapes together with language based works by Ian Hamilton Finlay and also a number of works by unfamiliar artists from the early 20th century.
