Peter Brown (British artist)
Peter Edward Mackenzie Brown (born 28 July 1967) is a British Impressionist painter popularly known as "Pete the Street" from his practice of working on location in all weathers. He is best known for his depictions of street scenes and landscapes. He loves working 'in the thick of it' painting the streets of Varanasi to Toronto and closer to home in Barcelona, Paris, London and his adopted home city of Bath. He insists on working directly from the subject refusing to use photographic reference.
Life and career
Brown was born in Reading and educated at Presentation College, Reading. He graduated in fine art from Manchester Polytechnic in 1990. He moved to Bath in 1993, where he lives with his wife Lisa and four children, and took up painting full-time in 1995. He developed a vigorous en plein air style, and happily interacts with passers-by while at work. "Working is like being at a party. I need to be at the centre of things," he has said. "Consciously or subconsciously, what I experience finds its way onto the canvas." [1]
Brown was elected a member of the New English Art Club in 1998. He is represented by Messum's in Cork Street, London, and also shows regularly at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath. In 2006 he became the first Artist in Residence at the Savoy Hotel, London.[2][3] In 2008 he won the Prince of Wales Award for Portrait Drawing.[4]
