Joe Brown was one of the foremost American sculptors in bronze of the twentieth century.
He was born to impoverished Russian-Jewish parents in 1909.
He grew up in South Philadelphia, principally in a slum known as Devil's Pocket.
He had an older brother named Harry, whom he idolized. Harry "Kid" Brown fought successfully as a professional prize-fighter, and generously supported his brother in all his pursuits, athletic and artistic.
Joe, himself, fought professionally to supplement his income as a student at Temple University, which he attended on a football scholarship.
Joe also modeled for artists, and was inspired to take up sculpting as a result.
Though largely self-taught, Joe would become both a boxing coach and full-professor of sculpting and visual art at Princeton University, where he taught for 38 years.
His work is found in the permanent collections of the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Columbia University, the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the New Jersey State Art Museum, the Kennedy Memorial Library, the Woodmere Art Museum, and last, but not least, at our own QCC.
The work at QCC is a smaller study for a monumental piece entitled, Two Athletes(or alternately, Gymnasts), which stood outside the Temple University gymnasium for several decades.
The next time you pass, take a closer look at this entrancing, torsional composition. You are privileged to have the opportunity to do so, thanks to the late, great Joe Brown.
