John Lewis Brown, painter and printmaker, was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1829 to parents of Scottish descent. His father, of the same name, was a vintner and art collector who came to France to found Chateau Brown. Thus, the Brown family could send young John to the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he studied under Jean Hillaire Belloc and Camille Roqueplan. Brown later cited Edgar Degas and Eugene Lami as major influences. His focus was primarily on military and animal subjects, and was known for his works from the frontlines of the Franco-Prussian war and pre-Impressionist hunting scenes. Brown is often credited as having helped to revive printmaking as an art form, along with contemporaries such as James McNeill Whistler.

Brown exhibited at the Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris in 1887, and the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts in Scotland in 1889, among others. He was awarded the first class medal for painting at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889. In 1870, he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Brown died of an unknown illness in Bordeaux, France, in December of 1890.