Joe Brown Boxer/Sculptor/Playground Equipment Designer/Professor

While we tend to think of Quirk as a painter, he also had an interest in sculpture as shown by his purchase of various pieces for Lehigh University and exhibitions. These exhibitions boosted the profile of the artists; helping build their resumes and careers. In an earlier post, we discussed a 1955 exhibition that included artwork by William "Lone Star" Dietz, Jose deRivera and Joe Brown.  This post focuses on Joe Brown who is best known as a sculptor and boxer, but there is much more to his story. 

Joe Brown at work in his studio working on a play structure.

Joe Brown Biography

Joe Brown was the son of Russian immigrants, he grew up in South Philadelphia and graduated South Philadelphia High School in 1926. A gifted athlete, he won a 1927 football scholarship to Temple University. He left before graduation, and briefly worked as a professional boxer. He made extra money as an artists' model, and became interested in studying sculpture. He served a 7-year apprenticeship under University of Pennsylvania professor and sculptor R. Tait McKenzie. 

Brown became the boxing coach at Princeton University in 1937, continuing until the early 1960s. He began teaching a sculpting course in 1939, became a resident artist at the university, and was made a full professor of art in 1962.  He continued teaching at Princeton until his 1977 retirement.

This is where the post takes off in a different direction. I thought it would be discussing Brown's sculptures on Veteran's Stadium, but instead we transition into his work designing play structures for children. 

Having recognized, that movement through sport and play is important for the development of young people, Joe Brown turned his attention to play equipment for the first time in 1950. Brown critiqued play equipment designed by Princeton's architecture graduate students. Challenged by the students, and somewhat embarrassed that he had no real knowledge of playground design other than his own experiences as a child, Brown began to come up with his own devices.

Photo of Jiggle Rail designed by Princeton Professor and Sculptor Joe Brown

Mr Brown improvised, on the spot, with some scrape of steel tap laying around from some repair work being done at the school. He put some pieces of metal banding together to form a small model of the spider-like device which he later came to call the Jiggle Rail. It was a intriguing device that he couldn't quit thinking about, and so later he built a full size Jiggle Rail and got permission to set it up in a school playground.

Examples of his designs were presented to the general public at the National Recreational Congress in St. Louis in 1954. Many experts believe his designs to have been revolutionary.

Ropes and Tires Play Sculpture by Joe Brown

His radically new aesthetic of play design brought him into contact with renowned architects such as Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius. In a letter to Brown, Breuer wrote: ‘These are I believe magnificently simple, sympathetic and dynamic instruments and succeed in being first-rate sculptured objects.’ His ‘dynamic instruments’ consisted of rope and/or steel and fully acquired their sculptural quality when children played on them, the rope’s instability and unpredictability demanding quick reactions and communication. 

Saddle Slide installation

Robert Nichols, one of the founders of Playground Associates, wrote to him for help when they formed their company that would soon produce the Saddle Slide. Brown termed his structures “’Play Communities’ and they included the so-called Swing-Ring, which seems to have inspired many play structures up until today.

Swing Ring designed by Sculptor Joe Brown

Whale designed by Joe Brown

Many experts believe his designs to have been revolutionary. He developed what he termed play communities, which drew attention both for their sculptural character and their play function. 

Sculptor Joe Brown designing play equipment.

Joe Brown is thus also regarded as a pioneer of modern play equipment culture, having been one of the very first to define play as preparation for the responsibilities of adulthood. Over the next few years, he installed a number of prototypes in and around Philadelphia and outside the USA, in London and Tokyo. Playground Associatges acommercialized some of his designs.

In 1959, Joe Brown published a book called Creative Playgrounds and Recreation Centers containing the designs of his first spatial rope play equipment. He derived his play concept for rope play equipment from a classic boxing ring. He believed deeply that play was a preparation for adulthood, a popular view since the early part of the twentieth century. Brown wanted his pieces to demonstrate cause and effect as part of normal behavior, with the aim of forming cooperative future citizens. We find it interesting that our search for images of Brown turned up two that showed him at work on play structures. To learn more about Joe Brown's playground pieces go here. 

Having played in parks and raised two active boys, I have vicariously enjoyed the descendents of this "enfant terrible's" designs and their benefits. In Susan Solomon's Book American Playgrounds, she quotes a description of him in his time as "the most hotly debated figure in playground architecture-- a sort of Frank Lloyd Wright among the teeterboards." He advanced thinking on play spaces significantly. 

Moving back to Brown's sculpture, he created more than 400 works - statuettes, portrait busts, and sculptures. Examples are on many college campuses, and in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, Princeton University Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and the National Art Museum of Sport.

Joe Brown in his studio with clay sculptures that would be cast and installed in Philadeelphia

Perhaps the best known works were the giant 15 foot tall sculptures of at Veterans Stadium. Philadelphia Veterans Stadium, informally called "The Vet", housed the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL) from 1971 through 2002 and the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1971 through 2003. The Vet also hosted the annual Army-Navy football game 17 times, first in 1976 and last in 2001, and the Philadelphia Catholic League football playoffs during the 1970s and 1980s. The 1976 and 1996 Major League Baseball All-Star Games were held at the venue. The Vet was also home to the Philadelphia Stars of the United States Football League (USFL) from 1983-1984, and Temple University Football from 1974-2002.

Punter Sculpture in place at Veterans Stadium

He was originally selected to produce the four statues by the Art Commission in 1970. In 1976, his statues of football and baseball players were installed along the walkway of Veteran's Stadium. When the Stadium was replaced by Lincoln Financial Field and Citizens Bank Park, and subsequently demolished in 2004, the Philadelphia Phillies removed and restored the statues. They were relocated to the perimeter of the Citizens Bank Park's new parking lot where the Vet once stood in March, 2005. The Punter and The Batter were relocated to the north end of the parking lot, along Hartranft Street/Phillies Drive. Tackle and Play at Second were relocated to the south end of the parking lot, along Pattison Avenue.

The Tackle by Joe Brown