Hilton Brown was born in 1938 in Momence, Illinois, and studied painting, drawing, printmaking and art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a BFA in 1962 and MFA in 1963.
In the 1960s Brown explored abstract and non-representational visual ideas that were influenced by the Washington School of Color spearheaded by Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, and perpetuated through the works of such artists as Howard Mehring and Thomas Downing.
Brown has taught the visual arts at the following institutions: The School of the Art Institue of Chicago; the School of Fine Arts of Washington University, St. Louis; Goucher College, Baltimore, MD; and the University of Delaware, Newark, DE where he is the Harriet T. Baily Professor of Art, Art History, Art Conservation and Museum Studies.