Joan Brown; Figurative Artist, Teacher

Joan Brown, a San Francisco-area figurative artist who used mysticism as inspiration for her work, has been killed in a construction accident in a museum in India. She was 52.

Ms. Brown was installing a mosaic obelisk at the new Heritage Museum in Proddatura, India, when a concrete turret from the floor above collapsed on her Friday, according to colleagues at UC Berkeley.

Ms. Brown, a member of the UC Berkeley art faculty since 1974, was working on the project for the Indian government in a university exchange agreement.

Ms. Brown gained fame early for her art. In 1958, when she was a 20-year-old student at the former California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Ms. Brown won recognition for her large paintings that combined figurative images with thick swatches of color.

At 25, she became frustrated by success, dropped out of the art world and traveled the globe studying archeology and anthropology.

Her later work, including sculptures, was influenced by the pyramids of Egypt, Incan folklore in Peru, the Aztecs of Mexico, and dancing Krishnas from India. She called the resulting pieces “inward journeys,” boldly colored paintings with Sphinxes and half-human, half-animal figures and towering obelisks with mosaics of lions, lambs, doves and tigers.

She resurfaced in 1974 at an art show at UC Berkeley. Her works hang in museums and galleries from San Francisco to New York.