Hall of Fame

Allen F. Brewer, Jr. was one of America’s foremost equine artists. Art experts rank Brewer’s work on a par with that of C. W. Anderson and other greats. His works appeared in national and international magazines, and was reproduced on calendars, fabric, Christmas cards, playing cards, serving trays, china ware and even privately commissioned wallpaper. He also illustrated many books on horses. Perhaps Brewer’s most famous work was a portrait of Man o’ War, commissioned by Samuel D. Riddle for the American Thoroughbred Breeders Association.

Born in Newton Center, Massachusetts, Brewer spent his early childhood in Texas. The family soon moved back east to New Jersey, but the land of cowboys and horses had made a strong impression on the boy. Throughout his career a bolo tie, Texas boots, and wide-brimmed Stetson were familiar Allen Brewer trademarks.

Will James, famous western artist and writer, was partly responsible for Brewer’s career as a painter. Impressed with the boy’s early sketches of life in cow country, James talked the elder Brewer into sending his son to art school. While a student at Yale University’s School of Fine Arts, Brewer made a thorough study of the anatomy of the horse by dissecting one and by making more than a thousand studies of the animal’s bone and muscle construction. He completed a six-year course in four years to receive a B.F.A. degree in 1942.

Upon graduating, Brewer enlisted and eventually transferred to the Army Air Corps in which he served for over three years, working on secret picture charts, manuals and instruction books, and painting murals for the high command. It was in Orlando, Florida that he met his future wife, Marian, a native of South Carolina, who was then working for his commanding officer in the Air Corps. After the war, while still in Florida, Brewer received his first important commission from friend Gibson White: a painting of Gibson’s filly Deanna, with his father Ben White holding her. Brewer soon moved on to Lexington, Ky., and formed Equi-Lith, Inc., a company specializing in the reproduction of his paintings.

Brewer’s work has long been admired for its skillful composition, perspective, and use of light and shadow. Using patterns of veins and definition of tendons – understated and blended into the whole of the work – has helped to give them an overall three-dimensional effect. Brewer’s ability to capture the individuality and characteristics of his subject on canvas was remarkable. His technique dates back to the 15^th-century Florentine school, employing the use of an egg-tempera base, which is first covered with a series of transparent color glazes. It is then built up with an opaque color in the light areas.

In addition to painting horses, Brewer also owned and drove them. He held a trainers license for both Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds, and a driver’s license for harness horses.

Tragically, Brewer’s life was cut short at the age of 46 when a light private airplane in which he was a passenger crashed shortly after take-off from the airport at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on September 21, 1967. He was survived by his wife and six children.

Allen Brewer Jr. was inducted as an Immortal into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 1979.