biography of Russell COWLES (1887-1979)

Birth place: Algona, Iowa

Death place: NYC

Addresses: Los Angeles, CA; Santa Fe, NM, c.1930; NYC, 1973; New Milford, CT , 1976

Profession: Painter

Studied: Cornell Univ.; Mt. Vernon, IA; Dartmouth College, A.B., 1909; NAD; ASL; Am. Acad., Rome; Century Assn.; Grinnell College, honorary D.F.A., 1945; Dartmouth College, D.H.L., 1951; Cornell Univ., honorary D.F.A., 1958; mural painting with Douglas Volk & Barry Faulker.

Exhibited: AIC, 1925 (medal); PAFA, 1925-58; Salons of Am., 1933; Denver Art Mus., 1936 (prize); Corcoran Gal, 1935-53; Santa Barbara Mus., 1943 (prize); WMAA; CI; LACMA; California Palace of Legion of Honor; Kraushaar Galleries, NYC, 1970s. In the course of his career he had at least forty solo shows.

Member: Century Assn.

Work: Denver Art Mus.; Terre Haute Mus; Encyclopedia Britannica Collection; Murdock Col., Univ. Wichita; Dartmouth College; LACMA; PAFA; murals: Register & Tribune Bldg., Des Moines.

Comments: After completing a period of study under Volk & Faulkner, Cowles was awarded the Prix de Rome and the Fellowship of the American Academy at Rome, where he remained 5 years; war intervening, he served in the Intelligence Dept. of the U. S. Navy in Italy. In 1920 he returned to America and exhibited at the Metropolitan Mus., after which time he went to Egypt, Greece, Indian, Java, Bali and the ruins of Angkor, as well as to Japan and China, where he spent a year under a Chinese master. After that time he divided his time between New York and the Southwest.

Sources: WW73; WW47; Monroe Wheeler, included in: Painters and Sculptors of Modern Art (Crowell, 1942); Ernest W. Watson, included in: Twenty Painters and How They Work (Watson-Guptill, 1950); Ralph M. Pearson, included in: The Modern Renaissance in American Art (Harper & Row, 1954); Ness & Orwig, Iowa Artists of the First Hundred Years, 51-52; P&H Samuels, 110.