about the business
Joan R. Brownstein / Art and Antiques is a business which specializes in finding, researching, and selling New England furniture and paintings of the 18th. and early 19th. centuries with an emphasis on design excellence, condition, and surface quality. Folk art portraits, school girl art, and portrait miniatures are particular interests.


about Joan
I have always defined myself as a painter. My interest in American landscape painting underpins my own abstract work, and it has been through abstraction that I have come to understand and appreciate American folk art.

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in art and art history. Art history extends beyond chronological and regional style development. It is also about the role of the creative artist in society, the function of art as a cultural product, and the ways in which aesthetics reflect their time. In order to appreciate and evaluate objects they need this context.

During the past three decades I have been a college studio art and art history teacher, worked in museum education, administered a publicly funded arts organization, and written extensively on the arts. My own paintings are in numerous corporate, public, and private collections.

In 1980 I started this business and have since exhibited at major antiques shows throughout the North East. I am a member of the Antiques Council and the Antiques Dealers of America, of which I was a board member. I 'vet' paintings for both organizations. Every item I sell comes with a written guarantee.

The gallery, located in Newbury, MA., operates as a joint shop with Peter H. Eaton Antiques, Inc.