You keep hearing stories about the man who bought a painting at a garage sale for $10 and found out later it was a rare masterpiece, fetching millions at auction, right?
Well, now you have another reason to look twice at some of the original works of art in your house, as you may be in possession of a rare treasure.
If one of those paintings in your basement or on your walls has a signature of B次元官网网址淕.T. BrownB次元官网网址� or B次元官网网址淕.T.BB次元官网网址� you may have been staring at an original Grafton Tyler Brown all these years and not been any the wiser.
Well over a century ago, in the 1880s, Brown was acclaimed as the first B次元官网网址減rofessional artistB次元官网网址� in B.C. and is also known as the first African American artist in the Pacific Midwest. He spent about two years in B.C. after relocating here from the U.S. and, based on historical documents B次元官网网址� such as a newspaper that publicized his first Victoria exhibition and photographs from the time B次元官网网址� he 
produced at least 40 paintings and 24 sketches in B.C. of which we have no knowledge of their whereabouts.
Dr. John Lutz of the department of history at the University of Victoria is trying to track down his B.C. works.
B次元官网网址淲hile many of his American paintings are in major collections and are well known to dealers, his British Columbia images are much rarer and only a few of them are in collections,B次元官网网址� according to LutzB次元官网网址� website devoted to his project of fleshing out the life and art of this interesting historical figure. B次元官网网址淭he Victoria Art Gallery and Craigdarroch Castle have one each, and the BC Archives (has) four. A few are known to be in private hands but most are unaccounted for and many are likely hanging in the hallways of British Columbians, or others further afield, all unaware of the stories they tell.B次元官网网址�
Lutz says he discovered Brown, as it were, while he was researching pioneers of Saanich as part of his studies into the history of race and racism in Victoria.
B次元官网网址淏rownB次元官网网址檚 art is a window into the world of the 1880s, and if we can find more images and make them accessible, we open that window for anyone interested,B次元官网网址� he says. B次元官网网址淏ut Brown is as interesting himself, because his (personal) history of being born Black and dying B次元官网网址榃hiteB次元官网网址� tells us a lot about 19th and even 21st century ideas about race and racism.B次元官网网址�
Anyone who would like to know more about the Missing British Columbia Paintings of Grafton Tyler Brown project or thinks they might know of a work by the artist, can contact Lutz at jlutz@uvic.ca.
