[14] Brown spent most of his time in the easel-painting and watercolor department but did learn printmaking, producing such works as The Writing Lesson and Abstract.

[4][17] He completed many paintings while employed by the FAP and won high praise for his works at major competitive exhibitions.

[3][20] Included were The Lynching, Smoking My Pipe and two mural panels of Black babies and kindergarten children.

The article also called the work "one of the unusual paintings" in the PWAP exhibit and stated that "Brown is vitally an individual painter, who, despite his training for commercial design at the School of Industrial Art, breaks through conventions.

… His clever adoption of a folk-like style to present a serious subject became the mark of his artistic work.”[23] The work had been rejected by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for its annual exhibition that year.

Some of Brown’s paintings, including The Lynching and the self-portrait Smoking My Pipe, were chosen for long-term loan to the Philadelphia Art Museum.

[3] Kimball noted the museum’s deliberations in a letter, stating:“They took a self-portrait Smoking My Pipe by Brown.

Brown uses distortion as a naturalistic device to evoke the feeling of pain, anguish, suffering or struggle”.

[27]First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt recalled viewing So Tired in her syndicated “My Day” newspaper column a decade later on April 8, 1946, giving it her own title of The Scrub Woman.

Brown recreated it in 1982 with the title Scrubwoman II, which was shown in a solo retrospective at the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia.

[3] Six other works were included in Locke's book, all courtesy of the FAP: Little Boy Blue (1937), Mrs. Simmons (1936), The Writing Lesson (1937), Two Smart Girls (1938), Moments of Thought (1938), Child With Toy Horn (1939).

At the same time, he was exhibiting two watercolors – Flowers and The Plaid Dress – in Negro Hall at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas.

[13][10] Brown was selected to present works at the December 1940 opening of the South Side Community Art Center in Chicago where Roosevelt was the guest speaker.

[36] While teaching at Dobbins High School in 1946, Brown produced a series of serigraph posters on global peace and brotherhood.

[16][3][37] The series titled One World, Brown said, was “the realization of an artist’s dream for the glorification of the Negro child, and the fostering of good will through portraying children of all races in scenes encouraging to correct behavior patterns.

They stand in their simplicity, a beautiful tribute to our children.”[3] In 1953, he won third place in the professional division of the Latham Foundation’s International Humane Poster Contest.

[15] He also produced portraits of school administrators, prominent Philadelphians, family, friends and religious leaders.

[43] In 1990, Brown was represented in the show “Against the Odds: African American Artists and the Harmon Foundation” at the Newark Art Museum in New Jersey.

[44] In 2015, a Brown watercolor The Odd Sister (1973) was part of a group show at the Woodmere Art Museum titled “We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s.”[43] The painting had been shown in 1975 at the Second World Black and African Festival of Art and Culture (FESTAC) at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

[43] In 2021, his painting Urlene, Age Nine was featured in the Delaware Art Museum's exhibition, Afro-American Images 1971: The Vision of Percy Ricks.

[50][51] Brown was an early member of the Pyramid Club, an organization of Black male professionals founded in 1937.

[43] Brown participated in the club's annual art exhibitions,[43] along with Henry B. Jones, Howard N. Watson, Benjamin Britt, Robert Jefferson, Samuel J.