Considered to be the first Black landscape painter in the United States, Grafton Tyler Brown led a prolific career as an artist while passing as white. His art simultaneously exemplifies the settler-colonialist attitudes of his contemporaries, while also posing radical, nearly unparalleled compositional formats, in his later oil paintings. 

Beginning his artistic career in California, Brown originally worked as lithographer under the employment of C. C. Kuchel. Eventually, Brown founded and managed his own business, while traveling throughout the American West, along the Northern Pacific Railway. Across the West, Brown created maps and landscapes, finding success as both a businessman and an artist. Soon after, Brown sold his lithography business to his partner, and began his artistic career, as an oil painter. 

Brown moved to Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada and joined the Bowman geological expedition. He surveyed the Cariboo region of Canada, acting as a draftsman, creating maps, and creating detailed oil paintings of the Canadian landscape. After garnering respect and high regard from Victoria audiences, Brown moved back to the United States. Briefly he lived in Tacoma, Washington, furthering his pursuit of  landscape painting, before he moved onto Portland, Oregon. 

In Portland, Brown incorporated himself into the local artistic community. He co-founded the Portland Art Club and served as its secretary, organizing artist gatherings and contests between Oregonian artists. During this time, Brown traveled to the recently established Yellowstone National Park, and captured the features of the landscapes in a plein-air style. 

Eventually, Brown moved to Helena, Montana, for its proximity to Yellowstone, selling his works to the tourist market. Although Brown continued to draw inspiration from the Yellowstone landscape, he soon moved away from the American West. Brown married, and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. Here, he worked as a draftsman for the state and national agencies, such as the United States Army Corps of engineers and the city’s civil engineering department. After nearly two decades in St. Paul, Brown retired, and shortly thereafter, he passed away.