Grafton Tyler Brown is considered the first professional Black artist in the Pacific west. The one-week art exhibition, the first art exhibit in Victoria by any artist, included 22 paintings: views of Victoria, surrounding area and the mainland.
This photograph was taken in his studio at the Occidental Hotel in Victoria. The painting on the easel is “Valley of the Similkameen (1883)” This is his story
Royal B.C. Museum holds the greatest number of and most significant of Brown’s Canadian works. In March 2018 the Museum and Friends of the BC Archives Society purchased “Giant’s Castle Mountain: A.L. Fortune’s Farm, Enderby B.C.”, dated October 6, 1882; and in Feb 2022 RBCM purchased “Entrance to the Harbour”, Victoria B.C., May 1883, depicting Victoria’s harbour — “it was the signature painting in Brown’s 1883 exhibition.”
