Filed under: Review, San Francisco | Tags: California School of Fine Arts, Joan Brown, nadia fellah, San Jose Museum of Art
One of Joan Brown’s first encounters with art was as a Catholic high school student in San Francisco. It mainly consisted of calendar covers in her Christian family living course. She later said of her parochial education: “I [knew] that this was just one tiny bit of what there was, and that I just had to get through this—get old enough is what it was—and get the hell out of there.” After graduating, Joan submitted a few pencil sketches of movie stars to the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) on a whim, and was admitted in 1955 at the age of seventeen. It was during her initial year at CSFA where she met her first of four husbands, William Brown (whose name she kept), and Elmer Bischoff, an influential teacher that would become a lifelong friend and mentor. - Nadiah Fellah, San Francisco Contributor
