Mildred Browne
101 Year Old Artist
Mildred Browne, born in 1923 in Carrollton Georgia, has always had a love for the arts. She began painting with oils in the 1960’s and continues today. As a young bride she worked at various jobs, from sewing in her home during the war to working in the mill while raising two young children. She assisted building her first house in 1948-1949 just before giving birth to her third child. Mildred pursued a career in nursing in the 1950’s and worked at City-County Hospital, Clark Holder Clinic, in LaGrange, and later at DeKalb General Hospital in Decatur, Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, and ended her career as a private duty nurse where she met her late husband, Nathaniel Browne.
Mildred studied art at Callaway Art Association, LaGrange, in the 1960s and studied with Doris Hancock in Decatur through the 1970s. She was formerly a member of the Smoke Rise Art Association and the Monroe Art Guild. Now, at 101 years young, Mildred still paints with enthusiasm at The Active Life Center in LaGrange and is still going strong.
Nathaniel Browne
The late Nathaniel “Nat” Borraidaille Browne, IV (1921-2007), studied art since the age of 12 when he attended the High Museum of Art summer course and received an Arts Award. He studied commercial art at Tech High School. Nat served as a Navy Officer on the USS Smalley Destroyer in WWII. He received a Bachelor of Architecture Degree at Georgia Institute of Technology, and worked as a licensed architect after the war and throughout his career.
Nat is a water color artist, specializing in realism, but is equally proficient with pen and ink detailed drawings, as well as portraiture. He was a member of the Smoke Rise Art Association, Stone Mountain in the 1990s and painted with the Monroe Art Guild. Mildred and Nat enjoyed painting together for many years before his death in 2007. A number of his paintings are in private collections in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida.