Annora Brown: Daughter of the Prairie

Annora Brown of Fort Macleod is one Alberta’s most celebrated artists. She is best known for her paintings and drawings of wildflowers and native plants of southern Alberta and as the author of the western Canadian classic “Old Man’s Garden”, published in 1955. She was a student who trained with Group of Seven members and had sense of place that also included landscape, the rural countryside of the Oldman River area, small towns and First Nations. Her story will be told through her engaging and beautiful artwork and through photographs, artifacts and her own writing.

Annora Brown was born in Red Deer in 1899 to pioneer parents who soon moved to Fort Macleod. Her father was a member of the North West Mounted Police and her mother was one of the Fort Macleod’s first school teachers. From the 1930s to her retirement in 1965, Brown gave art classes in rural southern Alberta for the University of Alberta Department of Extension, taught at the Banff School of Fine Arts, and privately mentored many students.

Please note: Don’t describe Annora as a botanical artist because she considered herself a modern artist, not a scientific illustrator who was concerned with perfect detail. As a modern artist, she was more engaged with the character of the wildflower and its place in the natural environment.

From June 11 to September 5, 2016, the Galt Museum & Archives is presenting the first-ever retrospective of one of Alberta’s most significant early artists, Annora Brown (1899-1987) of Fort Macleod. The guest curator of Annora Brown: Daughter of the Prairie is curator and writer Mary-Beth Laviolette. The exhibit will feature some of her most well known artworks as well as rarely seen paintings now with friends and admirers of this remarkable artist. Admission fees apply.