Greg Brown, Local Artist

Greg Brown’s talent and his wry sense of humor are on display in the conference

The wall was clear sealed concrete awaiting the perfect piece of art. It now has a mural with a suitable construction theme in Greg’s view of such things. Rusty pipes are traversing from a black hole to a heavenly blue sky.

Greg Brown’s murals have been a visual delight in Palo Alto since 1976, when he was first known as a community artist. Greg started his career with a bit of venture capital from the City of Palo Alto. The payback has been in the familiar murals seen on buildings in the downtown area. His imagination shows in the variety of his art: the boy fishing on the west wall of the Main Post Office, the Spiro Agnew character on Bryant Street, saved when Restoration Hardware remodeled the building, and the space ship on the Emerson Street side of the Comerica Bank building.

Greg’s lithograph celebrating Palo Alto’s Centennial shows Leland Stanford’s top hat under a stack of headgear depicting six other eras of the Centennial. It was limited to one hundred copies, which were sold to benefit the Centennial Fund, now the Palo Alto Endowment Fund.

Greg’s art is spread widely in the USA, Canada and Europe. Sister City Linkoping, Sweden has a music hall mural with a violinist climbing into a second floor balcony. His posters of fruits and vegetables under the name of "Vegetables on Vacation" brought the art indoors.

As one might imagine, Greg Brown’s personality goes with his art - clever and enjoyable. The Housing Corporation staff hasn’t laughed nearly as much as the days when Greg was plying his art on the wall and joining in meetings at random. Public art with a chuckle—that’s Greg’s way and our community pleasure.

See the mural, "Visitation",  at the Barker Hotel.

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