Brown was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1881. He worked as a news agent on a passenger steamer, spending free time sketching. At 15, he was hired as Hamilton Spectator's political cartoonist. In 1901, Brown traveled to New York City, where he studied at the Art Students League with Walter Appleton Clark, F. W. DuMond, and F.R. Gruger.
When a friend was assigned by The Saturday Evening Post to cover a circus, Brown went along and submitted sketches of his own to the magazine, beginning an artist-publisher relationship of 40 years. His drawings appeared in numerous Post issues from the 1910s on. He concentrated on story art, not covers, for Collier's, College Humor, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan, among other magazines. He also contributed posters for the WWI effort and illustrations for books.
