Joseph Brown was born on March 20, 1909 in the Grey Ferry section of Philadelphia. His extraordinary life and career ended on March 14, 1985.

Joe was the preeminent sculptor of athletes in modern times; his principal work is comparable to athletic sculptures from ancient Greece and to the best such Renaissance. His knowledge of anatomy and his empathetic representations of the body in motion derived from his own career as a college and professional athlete. His extensive experience as a teacher and coach at Princeton University during four decades enhanced his skills as an artist. It is said that Joseph Brown found full expression of his love of sports and sculpture at Princeton University, where he served as boxing instructor, Lecturer in Creative Arts, and Sculptor in Residence, with the rank of Professor.

In 1927, Joe Brown entered Temple University on a football scholarship where he majored in Physical Education. The following year he became captain of the boxing team. In 1928, he became captain of the boxing team and in his junior year to earn money, he turned from amateur boxing to professional boxing. Near the end of this junior year and with his boxing career showing great promise with a 9-0 record, he quit fighting having realized that boxing was not a life-long profession. He then returned to his amateur standing on Temple's boxing team. After injuring his hands in a practice match, Joe began modeling for a sculpture class conducted by Walker Hancock at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to earn extra money. It was Joe's bold criticism of a boxing sculpture by Hancock that Hancock gave Joe some clay to work with which he quickly fashioned a figure of a fighter and was encouraged by Hancock to pursue sculpture. After seven months, he created two boxing pieces and a ballet dancer all of which were accepted into the annual exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Joe's early sculptures captured the attention of Dr. R. Tait McKenzie (1867-1938), a noted Philadelphia physician and sculptor and Professor of Medicine and Director of Physical Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1931, Joe graduated from Temple with a Bachelor's degree in Education. He entered McKenzie's sculpture studio as an apprentice learning to make enlargements of sculpture and constructing armatures. During his time in the studio, he continued to work on his own sculptures developing his technique. It was McKenzie's words of wisdom, "Don't plan on making a living with your art. If you try, you will be shaped by the fashions in art and cease to be an artist, because you will no longer work from a basis of personal experience." that encouraged Joe to turn to teaching.

In 1937, Joe contacted Princeton University expressing an interest in a position as a boxing coach. It was around that time that Princeton decided to dismantle its entire boxing program. It was believed that the brutality of the sport was incongruous in a college environment. Joe felt that the basic premise of boxing was not in keeping with the college environment which emphasized healthy competition. Joe also felt that basics of boxing were not in keeping with the college philosophy. He proposed to Princeton officials that boxing could still be fun if certain adaptations were made from the professional to the college level. He advocated the use of headgear at all times, and mandatory examinations by a physician present at the match should a competitor be knocked down or bleeding. His comments made an impression on the administration that they hired him. In 1938, with a steady income he married Gwyneth King, herself a professional artist. It was not until two years later that it was discovered Joe was a gifted sculptor. It was when the Academic Dean Christian Gauss notices a bronze statue of the champion swimmer "Duke Kahanomoku" on someone's desk, and asked about he artist and learning that it was Joe he convinced him to become Princeton's new Resident Fellow of Sculpture on the Creative Arts Program. Joe continued to coach the boxing program until 1962. After that he became a full Professor of Art, and continued to teach sculpture until he retired in 1977.

Joe created more than 400 sculptures and they carry the same theme, the dynamics of the human figure. In his sculptures of athletics which were his most popular subjects, his fascination with the study of human anatomy. As a result of his own career as a boxer he was a master at capturing the athlete in motion. His sculptures are at once rooted in artistic ideals of the past, while at the same time, strongly shaped by the art of contemporary times. His figurative works such as the incomparable "Pieta" (1944) relate back to Classical Greek and Renaissance prototypes in achieving perfection of physical proportions and idealized form. Joe became this country's preeminent sports sculptor, a reputation he secured until his death in 1985. He depicted some of the most famous athletes of his time such as Olympic champion Jesse Owens, tennis pro Arthur Ashe, and champion oarsman Jack Kelly. He also had a talent for portraiture by capturing their animated gestures and expressions and obtaining a likeness full of spirit and life. Among his many well-known portraits were literary giants Robert Frost, Rudyard Kipling, John O'Hara, and John Steinbeck.

After Joe retired from Princeton University, he moved to his studio on Canal Road in Princeton, New Jersey, where he continued creating sculptures. Among his monumental sculptures created in his studio are his Benjamin Franklin at the Printing Press, Cardinal Krol, and his Veteren's Stadium statues: "Punter", "Full-Swing", "Tackle", and "Play At Second Base" all located in Philadelphia.