Bolton Brown

[3]: 44–47  Although his own art was heavily influenced by the Tonalist aesthetic, his methods of teaching, which contrasted sharply with the traditional approach at the nearby School of Design in San Francisco, stressed the Impressionist credo of rapid execution of "natural subjects" in the wilderness.

In 1898 Brown designed the studio rooms in Stanford's new Art Building, which included such "radical" innovations as "one continuous belt of glass" eight feet high and muted terra cotta and gray tones on the walls.

[10] Brown's skills as an artist and outdoorsman brought him to the attention of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead (1854–1929), an aristocratic utopian who developed the concept, and supplied the capital, for the Byrdcliffe Colony.

[12] Along with fellow artistic spirit Hervey White, also hired by Whitehead, Brown developed and managed the grounds of Byrdcliffe from 1902 to 1903, constructing footpaths, plumbing systems and bungalows.

In 1915, an exhibition of the work of Albert Sterner in New York inspired him to turn to lithography, a print-making technique that would ultimately occupy his time and intellect to an almost obsessive degree.

He promoted the medium indefatigably, along the lines for artists laid out by Ruskin, praising the physical vigor it required and the exquisite control of tone and shading it allowed, but insisting, in the Arts and Crafts tradition, on printers working directly on the limestone during composition.

Thinking and working ceaselessly until the end, he left behind an enormous output of lithographs and writings, including books and articles on painting and lithography and 12 volumes of journals documenting his experiments in print-making.