Hallie Ford Museum of Art presents Constance Fowler: Tradition and Transition an exhibition on view through JULY 21, 2013, featuring more than 50 works by Salem painter, printmaker, author, and educator, Constance Fowler (1907-1996). Organized by Professor Emeritus and Senior Faculty Curator Roger Hull.
Hull says “Fowler’s life and work provide a window not only onto her particular career but also onto a period in American art during which assumptions about art changed radically, and established artists faced the challenge of reinventing themselves and their artwork.” Hull added, “In the course of six decades, her prints and paintings saw major transitions and transformations, yet from the beginning her art was suffused with the restlessness and animation of modern expressionism.”
Fowler played an important role at Willamette University in 1935 when she was invited by university President Bruce Baxter to formally establish the art department. She continued to teach at the university until 1947, when she took a teaching position at Albion College in Michigan, where she continued to teach until she retired and moved to Seal Rock, Oregon in 1965.
This exhibition was supported by general operating support grants from the City of Salem’s Transient Occupancy Tax funds and the Oregon Arts Commission. Additional funding for the exhibition and brochure was also provided by Constance Fowler’s friend and colleague Bennet Ludden (1914-2012). www.willamette.edu