Untitled (figure lying down)

William Theophilus Brown

A male nude is a study in light and dark as the subject, illuminated by an unknown light source that could as easily be a spotlight as the sun, lies back with his head on his clasped wrists, one legged casually propped up. A dark background and an untouched foreground lend this simple ink wash a sense of solitude, and of a tender observation by the artist for his subject.

Brown’s background in Abstract Expressionism is evident in this ink wash study; however, he rejected the label vociferously, and believed his figurative work to be just that: a representation of the human figure, in quickly captured moments. In an interview with documentarian Paul Festa in 2011, not long before his death, he said that he agreed with the near entirety of his biographical Wikipedia entry, except for the portrayal of Brown as an Abstract Expressionist, which he called “horseshit.”