An influential teacher and headmaster of the Ottawa School of Art from 1887 to 1900, Brownell first visited the Caribbean around 1911, and was at once enchanted by its brilliant light. There, he painted some of the finest interpretations of local life to appear in Canadian art. Rapid, frank, truthful, touched with artistic idealization but not transformed by it, his Caribbean works are unconventional and carry a gem-like sparkle.
