Self Portrait with Cloud & Cigarette, 1964
Mixed media collage on panel
81 ¾ x 68 inches
Private Collection
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Buoyed by their underground association, the artists of the Beat movement, which flourished during Joan Brown's early years in San Francisco, encouraged one another to ignore traditional modes of art-making and success as defined by galleries and the art market. Embracing these ideas, Brown made "funky" sculptures and collages with ephemeral materials such as scraps of fur or fabric, cardboard, paper, and wood. Brown originally made the rare, large-scale collage Self-Portrait with Cloud & Cigarette (1964) on a wall while she was a guest instructor at the University of Colorado Boulder. She portrayed herself on a cigarette break from painting. Her hair is disheveled and she wears gloves to protect her skin from allergic reactions to her paint. A cloud, possibly smoke, surrounds her head. Brown used the cloud form frequently in her early work, both in her abstract and figurative painting (see El Verano, 1960, and Cocker Spaniel with Cloud at Night, 1963, also on view in the exhibition).
