[4][5] In 1929 she married a physician named Schley Brown, and in 1937 the two purchased a brownstone on 237 Rhode Island Avenue in LeDroit Park.
Because of its proximity to local schools, LeDroit Park attracted black educators and scholars, fostering a community of intellectuals.
[1] One such community member was the renowned African American writer Langston Hughes, who lived in LeDroit Park in the 1920s.
[1] At the time, Oak Bluffs was a popular vacation destination among upper and middle class African Americans, making Brown a part of both this local community and the one in LeDroit Park.
According to her niece, Brown had learned how to sculpt and make pottery when she attended Columbia University, and would gift these objects to friends or use them herself to decorate her home.
Hilda and Schley Brown financially supported Burwell's education by paying the portion of her tuition that was not covered by the scholarship, and by purchasing her art supplies.
[1] Lilian Thomas Burwell guest curated Hilda Wilkinson Brown's posthumous retrospective at the Howard University Gallery in 1983.
[4] Burwell has reflected on her aunt's life and career in articles for Washington History and The International Review of African American Art.
[3] She also studied at Cooper Union, The National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York City.
[1] Hilda Wilkinson Brown was a highly skilled painter and printmaker, but she was aware of the restrictions being a woman in her era placed on her art making.
Lilian Thomas Burwell recalls that Brown felt women's domestic responsibilities prevented them from making art as full-heartedly and self-centeredly as male artists.
[2] In 1940 she made six linoleum block prints for the first edition of E. Franklin Frazier's book The Negro Family in the United States.
In a review of her exhibition at Howard University Gallery, Paul Richard of the Washington Post said "hers are images that teach.
"[4] Curator of the National Museum of American Art Merry Forester wrote that Brown "grappled with the problems of Fauvism, Cubism and Expressionism," reflected the influence of Realism, Precisionism and Conceptualism, and that "she worked in a style that only few in her time were courageous enough to use.