Brown is the first Black artist known to have worked professionally in California. During a career lasting more than 60 years, he designed imagery for city views, mining landscapes, stock certificates, maps, sheet music, and more, and he eventually owned his own printing firm. He was also an accomplished landscape painter, creating scenes of Yosemite and Yellowstone.

Brown was light-skinned, and evidence suggests that he passed as White, even aligning himself politically with local politicians who supported the Confederacy. Brown’s personal political views are unknown, but such affiliations may have been strategic: During the late 1860s, he managed to secure lucrative mapmaking commissions from Southern-sympathizing Democratic party leaders in San Francisco. He made this view of Portland while working for the San Francisco lithographer Charles Kuchel, and this copy is believed to be the only surviving impression.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).