Ann Eckert Brown author of
American Painted Floors before 1840
And
American Wall Stenciling 1790–1840
WINNER OF THE 2008 "RESEARCH AWARD"
FROM THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF
EARLY AMERICAN DECORATION

ABOUT THE BOOKS

American Painted Floors before 1840, examines and celebrates painted interiors. The anecdotal accounts of these buildings and homes and their inhabitants are a part of America's story. Brown's quest covers numerous dwellings in New England, extends as far north as Canada and west to Tennessee. Many of the locations are in Massachusetts and her home state of Rhode Island. She carefully selected these homes, probed into their backgrounds and then photographed their original floor designs, defining and exhibiting them handsomely in one publication.

Sandra Cohen, President of Historical Society of Early American Decoration writes, "The author proceeds like an archeologist— Brown's eyes travel through the painted interiors, searching and detecting clues. —each house on Brown's itinerary has a story, and her voluminous context whets our appetites to explore many different aspects of early American decoration.

Brown's attraction to historic houses and their decorative painted interiors stirred her curiosity and ignited her passion to learn more about the origin of these designs, techniques and the authors of these early architectural canvases. —All the details surrounding early painted floor décor before 1840 are rich and fascinating"!

In American Wall Stenciling 1790-1840, Ann Eckert Brown's extensive research has unearthed stencils not just in New England's more characteristic homes, taverns, and inns, but also in the south and midwest. She divides stenciling into rural-based folk art, which uses naturalistic, and sometimes primitive motifs, and classically inspired, urban-based stencils, which feature patterns more refined in scale and earlier in execution, echoing Federal style images.

Over 250 illustrations complement Brown's text as she makes fresh stylistic connections among designs, artists, regions, and houses over two centuries, discovering and illuminating some missing links in the history of wall stenciling. Even more, she ties together the shared destinies of the families, descendants, artists, rescuers, and restorers who lived with, created, or have dedicated their lives to preserving, this beautiful art form. She also provides a glossary, a discussion of early paint materials, suggested resources for wall stenciling preservation, and a Who's Who of American wall stenciling which includes 18th, 19th, and 20th century artists and preservationists. The result, as Mimi Handler writes in her foreword, "is a book that fairly hums with life and purpose."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ann Eckert Brown has been researching, executing, and teaching 18th and 19th century decorative painting techniques since the 1960s. Included in her restoration commissions is the painted interior of a Gothic Revival chapel in Newport, Rhode Island. Her ornamented furnishings have been widely exhibited, including two solo exhibitions in the 1990s. Her work has appeared in Yankee and Early American Life, which named her a craftsman of the year in 1993. She has presented numerous programs on American wall stenciling, including those at Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts and the The Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, New York. She is currently researching a third book entitled "Rhode Island Painted Rooms -Microcosm of American Interior Decoration".