Aug 11, 2007

Mural, mural on the wall

Local painter named 11th District artist of the year

By Kristina Peterson / Daily News Staff Writer

The first figure painted by artist Greg Brown on a downtown Palo Alto wall was so realistic-looking, it startled a council member in 1975.

The painting of a man in a trench coat, which residents called "The Spy," once graced the wall of the former Palo Alto Drug Company, where Taxi's diner is now located. The elected official spotted the figure while buying a newspaper, and complained bitterly about the mural at a meeting the same night.

"So I really quickly went out and did a second figure," Brown said.

That same year, Brown painted a mural of a man pushing a baby stroller with a cat - a less threatening image. He called it "the crowd pleaser," and it still adorns a downtown wall on Waverley Street, near the corner of University Avenue.

This week, state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) announced Brown as his selection for the 11th Senate District's artist of the year.

"Too often we think of art as something separate and apart from our daily lives," Simitian said this week. "Greg's art is an integral part of our daily lives."

Brown said he was concerned at first after hearing he'd been selected for the award.

"I initially thought it was a competition where all the state senators got together like bullies and said 'my artist is better than your artist,'" Brown said.

He was relieved to learn that the honor instead meant that he could select a piece to display in the state Capitol building.

For display, he chose "The Altercation," a drawing depicting, in Brown's words, "Susan, my banker" witnessing a fight between a stodgy "Lord Dartmouth" and "Lady Plumlip, the goddess of all things soft and squishy." His biography and art will also be included in the Senate art catalog.

In Palo Alto, Brown's art now adorns downtown walls, several parks, the water quality control plant and an ice skating rink.

"His murals are so strongly identified as part of the city," said Signe Mayfield, curator of the Palo Alto Art Center.

Linda Craighead, the art center's director, said while visitors new to Palo Alto are still often surprised by the realistic-looking murals, they invariably enjoy their humor.

"He's a very witty person and it comes out in those murals," she said.

Brown completed most of the public murals while he was the Palo Alto artist-in-residence in the mid 1970s. While his art was largely popular with residents, a few people were disappointed to discover Brown painting during daylight hours, he said.

"They thought I was some Zorro figure who did it all in the middle of the night," he said.

These days, Brown spends more of his daylight hours painting murals in private residences, but his style remains untamed, he said.

"I tend to do realistic work, but with a different spin on the ball," he said. Sometimes his human figures have pineapples instead of heads, for example.

"If somebody wants a nice mural with a sky and egrets ..." he paused, "I can put them in touch with someone who does that."


E-mail Kristina Peterson at kpeterson@dailynewsgroup.com.