Brookie Maxwell , artist, gallery owner, curator and activist, was born October 15, 1956 in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Daughter to celebrated author and Fiction Editor of New Yorker Magazine William Maxwell, and painter Emily Noyes Maxwell. From an early age, Brookie was surrounded by a community of the most celebrated and influential artists and authors of the twentieth century. Endowed with an artists’ DNA, she began drawing from the moment she could hold a crayon and continued a life of creative expression until her death from ovarian cancer in 2015. She is survived by her sister Katharine Maxwell and her son Ellis Maxwell who continues work on her last and most ambitious project, Coming Home: Journey, Community, Dialog.

Brookie Maxwell Works was created in order to honor and to further the legacy of late activist Artist Brookie Maxwell. The organization has three main goals: to help launch and develop the careers of emerging artists; to create and promote programs that nurture and develop the creative spirit in children everywhere; and to expand awareness and exposure to the artwork created during the lifetime of this extraordinary artist.