28 Facts About Russell Cowles

Russell Cowles was an American artist who painted landscapes, still lifes, and human forms in a style that combined both modernist and traditional elements.

Russell Cowles traveled widely throughout his life, combining the study and practice of art with an interest in learning about distant places and cultures.

Russell Cowles was born on October 7,1887, in Algona, Iowa, and was raised in Des Moines, Iowa.

Russell Cowles later referred to his college education as poor preparation for an artist.

Russell Cowles said its emphasis on an accurate depiction of the world with archaeological exactness was a "misfortune", implying that he achieved his own approach to art, which he said was neither academic nor conventional, only after he had overcome the influence of this "whole system of education".

Russell Cowles subsequently moved to Manhattan where, in 1911, he took classes first at the National Academy of Design and then at the Art Students League At this time, he studied independently under Douglas Volk, Kenyon Cox, and Barry Faulkner, all well-known muralists with traditional artistic values.

Russell Cowles's competition submission was a classically-inspired allegorical painting for a theater drop curtain entitled "The Drama as Teacher".

In 1927 and 1928 Russell Cowles traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa as well as South, South-Eastern, and East Asia.

The next year Russell Cowles began a long and fruitful relationship with the Kraushaar Galleries in a group exhibition and he participated in another group show at the Whitney.

Between 1935 and 1955, Russell Cowles received encouragement from The New York Times critic, Howard Devree.

Russell Cowles continued to show frequently with solo shows at Iowa State University, the Corcoran Gallery, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Kraushaar's.

Russell Cowles participated in group shows frequently at Kraushaar's and in museum settings such as the Riverside Museum, the Whitney, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Preston did not dismiss Russell Cowles for being a representational artist but being "methodical" and showing a "puritanical mistrust of natural beauty".

Between the 1940s and 1970s, Russell Cowles divided his work year between his home in New Milford and an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Russell Cowles died at the Manhattan apartment on February 22,1979.

Russell Cowles achieved his mature style by abandoning his neo-classical mural training and adopting what he called a more "modern school of painting".

Russell Cowles aimed to use an understanding of abstraction to achieve a satisfying sense of realism.

Russell Cowles said he wished to establish "a heightened sense of reality through a rhythmic organization of space".

In 1939, a critic said Russell Cowles expressed himself through abstraction but was not a "pure abstractionist".

In 1947, Russell Cowles showed a painting called "Still Life With Melon" in a solo exhibition at the Dalzell Hatfield Galleries in Los Angeles.

Russell Cowles was born in Algona, Iowa, on October 7,1887.

Russell Cowles's mother was an Algona native and daughter of Iowa pioneers.

Russell Cowles's siblings were Helen, Bertha, Florence, John, Sr.

In between these two trips, Russell Cowles spent the autumn months of 1924 painting in Mallorca.

Russell Cowles extended his stay in Rome from the usual three years to almost five when, in 1918, he took leave from the academy to work in the secret service branch of the office of the US naval attache in Rome.

Russell Cowles was a graduate of Smith College and had taken art classes in New York.

In 1928 Russell Cowles married Eleanor Stanton in Cairo, Egypt, during his two-year round-the-world travels.

Russell Cowles was the women's page editor of the New York Sun newspaper.