The Brewer art legacy

Little Rock financial advisers Lou and Larry Graham have joined me for lunch in downtown Little Rock, and they’re loaded down with materials. No, we’re not discussing my finances. I work in the newspaper business, after all, meaning I don’t have anything to invest. The subject of this discussion is art and their family’s legacy.

Beginning July 13, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock’s River Market District will host an exhibition of almost 50 paintings by Nicholas, Adrian and Edwin Brewer. The exhibition runs through September. Nicholas was the Graham brothers’ great-grandfather, and Adrian was their grandfather. Edwin was their uncle.

“Most of the paintings that will be on display are landscapes of Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Minnesota,” Larry says. “Those are states where they spent months at a time painting and selling their works of art. That’s how they made their living. Many of their paintings are in private collections across the country, but the Butler Center and the Arkansas Arts Center have had Brewer paintings donated through the years. One of Adrian’s best friends was John Gould Fletcher, who spent a great deal of time at Adrian’s studio in Hillcrest. Another famous Arkansan, architect Max Mayer, would lecture on architecture or play his violin at the studio.”

Fletcher published 10 volumes of poetry between 1915 and 1947. He also wrote a history of Arkansas, an autobiography and numerous essays. Mayer, who was born at San Antonio in 1887, came to Little Rock to work for the Mann & Stern architectural firm in 1914. In 1941, Fletcher commissioned Mayer to design his house, which was known as Johnswood. In the 1930s, Mayer had teamed up with preservationist Louise Loughborough to restore the houses that became the Arkansas Territorial Restoration (now the Historic Arkansas Museum). Fletcher, who battled depression for years, drowned himself in a shallow pond near Johnswood in 1950.

“My mother was Betty Brewer Rice and her brother was Edwin,” Larry says. “They also were heavily involved in the arts.”

Nicholas was born in Minnesota in 1857. His father, an immigrant from Germany, had joined the California gold rush of 1849. Nicholas was one of six sons. Although his primary residence remained in St. Paul, Minn., Nicholas traveled the country exhibiting his paintings and acquiring commissions from wealthy families for portraits. Adrian was born in October 1891 at St. Paul. In the fall of 1919, Nicholas came to Little Rock for an exhibition. The Little Rock Fine Arts Club, which had 80 women from prominent families as members, sponsored the exhibition on the top floor of the Pulaski County Courthouse. Adrian, who had served in the armed forces during World War I and had recently been discharged, accompanied his father to Little Rock.

“After the exhibition opening, Nicholas Brewer began filling portrait commissions that kept him busy for several months,” Thomas Teeter writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “One of his large landscapes was purchased by D.H. Cantrell, an attorney and president of the Little Rock Street Railway & Electric Co. Cantrell also commissioned Nicholas to paint his wife’s portrait. The next January, Nicholas held an exhibition in Hot Springs. There, Adrian met Edwina Cook, whom he later married. Adrian Brewer secured a commission for his father to paint a portrait in Texarkana the following summer and arranged for an exhibition of his father’s works for the Texarkana Woman’s Club the following fall.”

Adrian spent several months at the Eastman Hotel in Hot Springs, where he and his father had set up a portrait studio, while courting Edwina. He returned to Minnesota to teach before coming back to Hot Springs to marry Edwina in February 1921. Adrian and Edwina moved to Minneapolis for a time, but Adrian grew tired of working as a sketch artist for an advertising agency. He decided to manage his father’s exhibitions in the South and Midwest while painting landscapes in Arkansas, Texas and New Mexico. His portraits became popular with oilmen in Texas and south Arkansas. Adrian and Edwina moved to Arkansas for good in 1926.

In April 1928, Adrian received the Edgar B. Davis Prize of $2,500 in Austin, Texas, for a painting titled In a Bluebonnet Year. It remains in the collection of the San Antonio Art League. He later produced 126 landscapes while traveling through Arizona and New Mexico. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Adrian painted Arkansas landscapes such as Petit Jean Mountain and Mount Gayler. He established the Adrian Brewer School of Art in downtown Little Rock in 1921 at 105 W. Eighth St. and had almost 30 students the first year.

In order to support his landscape work, Adrian accepted frequent commissions for portraits. He painted portraits of more than 300 Arkansans, including one of U.S. Sen. Joe T. Robinson that hangs in the state Capitol. Robinson arranged for Adrian to paint a portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Adrian gave the appointment to his 77-year-old father.

Following World War II, Adrian moved his studio to 510 N. Cedar St. Adrian and his son Edwin later organized the Arkansas Art League with Arkansas Power & Light Co. as the sponsor. Nicholas died in February 1949 and is buried in Minnesota. Adrian died of lung cancer in June 1956 and is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Hot Springs.

“If you wanted your portrait painted in Arkansas, Adrian Brewer is who you went to,” Lou Graham says. “He was the best.”