Label TextCowles was born in Algona, attended high school in Des Moines, and spent his first college years at Cornell College in Mount Vernon. Cowles eventually moved to New York to study art, traveled the world, and soon established himself as a successful and well-reviewed artist who often focused on scenes of American life. This painting was made sometime in the 1930 or early 1940s, and depicts an audience view of a colorful and somewhat bawdy traveling circus act – a common entertainment in Great Depression-era America.
Exhibition History"Center Ring: The Artist - Two Centuries of Circus Art," Milwaukee Art Museum, cat. no. 30, (not illus) exhibition circulated to: Columbus Museum of Art, 8/30/81-10/11/81; New York State Museum, Albany,12/11/81-3/7/82; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 4/24/83-6/6/82~
"Selected Cowles Family Gifts to the Permanent Collection," Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
"From Body to Being: Reflections on the Human Image," Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
"Painting in the United States 1944," Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, Oct. 12 - Dec. 10, 1944
Published ReferencesDMAC ANNUAL REPORT
Exhibition History"Center Ring: The Artist - Two Centuries of Circus Art," Milwaukee Art Museum, cat. no. 30, (not illus) exhibition circulated to: Columbus Museum of Art, 8/30/81-10/11/81; New York State Museum, Albany,12/11/81-3/7/82; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 4/24/83-6/6/82~
"Selected Cowles Family Gifts to the Permanent Collection," Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
"From Body to Being: Reflections on the Human Image," Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
"Painting in the United States 1944," Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, Oct. 12 - Dec. 10, 1944
Published ReferencesDMAC ANNUAL REPORT
DimensionsOverall: 27 7/8 × 30 1/2 in. (70.8 × 77.5 cm)
Accession Number 1980.28
Classificationspainting
SignedColwes (l,r oil paint)
ProvenanceArtist; (Kraushaar Galleries, New York [acquired by 1944]); Des Moines Art Center [bequest of the prior, 1980]
Collections
