Hilton Brown, painter, educator, author, curator and gay rights advocate was born in 1938 in Momence, Illinois, a small farming town about fifty miles south of Chicago and five miles west of the Indiana border. Although his parents and his fraternal grandparents were also born in Momence, his fraternal great grandparents had been born in England and immigrated to the United States in 1850. His mother’s father, Hilton Shronts, was also born in Momence but Brown’s maternal grandmother had been born in Denmark and came to the United States around 1895.
After graduating from the Momence school system in 1956 as salutatorian of his class, he attended Goodman Theater School of Drama of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a year and a half on a full scholarship as a theatrical design major. Deciding that a career in the theater did not fit his interests, after working in the children’s book illustration department of Follett book publishing company for several years while attending night and Saturday classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, Brown entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on a full scholarship and received his professional certificate in painting in 1962, his BFA in painting and printmaking in 1963, and his MFA in painting, printmaking and art history in 1964. During this time he also studied liberal arts at the Universities of Chicago and Illinois, Chicago campus. He studied painting at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine on full scholarships during the summers of 1960 and 1961 and traveled in Europe in 1963 after having received a foreign traveling fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Hilton Brown began his teaching career in 1962 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, (1962-65). He has also taught at the School of Fine Arts of Washington University, St. Louis (1965-68); Goucher College, Baltimore, (1968-1978); and the University of Delaware, Newark (1974 to the present) where he holds a named professorship, the Harriet T. Baily Professor of Art, Art Conservation, Art History, and Museum Studies.