Born in Yonkers, New York, Byron Browne was a central figure in many of the modernist artistic and political groups that flourished during the 1930s in New York City. He was an early member of the Artists' Union, a founding member in 1936 of the American Abstract Artists, and a participant in the Artists' Congress until 1940, when political infighting prompted Browne and others to form the breakaway Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors.

Browne's artistic training followed traditional lines. From 1925 to 1928, he studied at the National Academy of Design, where in his last year he won the prestigious Third Hallgarten Prize for a still-life composition. Yet before finishing his studies, Browne discovered the newly established G...