“Alice Dalton Brown has consistently been a painter of light, mood, and affect for decades. Her paintings of water, curtains, and complex views through porches and windows suggest a world of calm, order, and peace. A viewer cannot help but succumb to a spiritual and contemplative mood, transcendent of the subject matter. These attributes make her an artist of unique quality.”
—Scott Kahn
Harper’s is pleased to announce The Contemplative View, New York-based artist Alice Dalton Brown’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, curated by Scott Kahn. The show will feature a series of recent oil paintings by the artist and opens on January 16, 2025 with a reception attended by the artist.
Dalton Brown has been pushing the boundaries of realist painting since the 1970s. During this time, the artist embarked on her study of domestic landscapes, rendering the sculptural shapes of dairy barns, places of refuge and shelter, with her signature visual language. Since then, critics have described the artist’s style of realism as a kind of subjective realism analogous to the groundbreaking approaches of painters like Richard Estes and Edward Hopper. Today, Dalton Brown continues to illuminate the imaginary within scenes where architecture and domestic presence leave minor traces of life that remain psychologically resonant. Dalton Brown’s impressionistic gaze offers a profound view.
Water is a primary subject within the works that comprise The Contemplative View. Drawing out the poetics in each scene, the artist captures the vital life force as a presence that lies beyond imagined windows, which foreground many of the featured compositions. Billowing curtains often surround these lookout points, as in Evanescence. The painting’s delicate curtains suspend the scene within a subtle human realm, their translucent folds gently stirred by an unseen breeze. Framing the ocean, they divide the quiet interior from the infinite seascape. The artist’s use of color enhances this duality: muted whites reflect a tranquil evening light on the curtains, contrasting with the deep blues of the water and introspective peach gradient of the sky. This striking interplay of tones evokes both serenity and abstruse depth, conjuring the viewer to meditate on the balance between human fragility and nature’s boundless expanse.
Other times, Dalton Brown stages a more direct division between the freedom of the natural world and the limitations of domestic space. In Doorway to the Sea, sharp shadows and contrasting colors exaggerate this distinction. Behind paned windows, cool gray tones suggest melancholic stillness and restraint. Meanwhile, dark vertical shadows emanating from ionic columns slice across a covered terrace, as if obstructing the viewer from the sundrenched haven where the sky meets the sea, awaiting just beyond the man-made structure. Through this push and pull of light and shadow, Dalton Brown masterfully captures the electric tension between confinement and liberation.
Ultimately, Dalton Brown’s intuitive gaze on everyday life looks critically beyond what is imaged. Through her keen eye, she unearths the obscured psychological and metaphysical undercurrents that inform existence. The Contemplative View invites the viewer into this realm of perception, provoking them to peer through the surfaces of familiar landscapes and interiors and unveil the unspoken tensions between presence and absence, stillness and movement. Dalton Brown’s careful aesthetic choices thus uncover the concealed variables shaping the spaces we inhabit, propelling contemplation on the emotional and existential layers of ordinary life.
Alice Dalton Brown (b. 1939, Danville, PA) received a degree from Oberlin College prior to relocating to New York City in 1970. Over the course of her four decade-long career, Dalton Brown’s work has been the subject of presentations at My Art Museum, Seoul (2021); Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH (2019 and 2018); Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca (2013); Fischbach Gallery, New York (2012, 2010, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2002, 2000, 1998, 1995, 1993, 1991, 1989 and 1987); Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO (1999); Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, New York (1985); and A.M. Sachs Gallery, New York (1984, 1983 and 1982). Her work has been included in notable group exhibitions at Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO (2024); Asheville Art Museum, Asheville (2023-4); Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York (2011); Dallas Women’s Museum, Dallas (2007); Rockwell Museum of Western Art, Corning, NY (2001); Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul (1993); Marion Koogler MacNay Art Museum, San Antonio (1990, 1989 and 1981); Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx (1987); Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo (1986); and Columbus Museum, OH (1985), among other institutions. Dalton Brown's work has been acquired by numerous collections including Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cornell University, and the Butler Institute of American Art. Dalton Brown lives and works in Peekskill and Cayuga Lake, NY.