Brown, John Carter

Brown, John Carter

(1797–1874) book collector; born in Providence, R.I. Son of philanthropist-industrialist Nicholas Brown, he assembled a unique library of pre-1800 Americana, eventually housed at Brown University.

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Brown, John Carter

(1934–  ) museum director; born in Providence, R.I. He studied at Harvard (B.A. 1956; M.B.A. 1958), at Munich University (with Bernard Berenson) (1958), at the Netherlands Institute of Art History (1960), and at New York University (M.A. 1962). His specialty was 17th-century Dutch art. As the director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1969–92), he presided over a period of great expansion in the museum's exhibitions and public presence.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.