Life
Rowe was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1910. In 1913, he moved with his family to Buffalo, New York. As a young man, he attended Cornell University where he majored in architectural and fine arts. While at Cornell, he joined Kappa Sigma fraternity in 1929. After graduating from college in 1932, he returned to Buffalo to begin his career as a professional artist.
In 1934, Rowe was commissioned to paint a 100 foot, multi-panel mural at Bennett High School in Buffalo. The project was supported by the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). The mural, called “New World Symphony,” was completed in 1935 and depicted the folk inspiration of American music. The work helped Rowe land the commission for an even larger PWAP mural in the Nurses’ Residence of the Buffalo Marine Hospital. When finished, the second mural was called “Old Buffalo of the Elegant Eighties and Nifty Nineties” or the “Buffalo and the Gay 90’s.” These two large works helped Rowe establish his reputation as a talented young artist.
Rowe went on to become a major figure in the Buffalo art community. In 1935, he began a cooperative studio where artists could share the costs of materials and exhibitions. However, his main efforts were aimed at developing the Art Institute of Buffalo. As a member of the faculty, he taught painting, theory and art history. Rowe was a popular teacher, but he was also a demanding instructor and a very tough critic of his student’s work. Many of his peers found him hard to deal with; nevertheless, he became director of the painting department in 1938, and in 1942 became president of the Art Institute’s board of directors. He continued to serve in these posts until 1945, and remained on the faculty until 1951.
In 1945, Rowe began making regular trips to Mexico and the American southwest where he had many artist friends including Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros and Santa Fe artists Joseph Bakos and Walter Mruk. He finally settled in Taos, New Mexico in 1951, and continued to paint in the Taos area until he was murdered in 1955. Rowe was a brilliant painter and a successful art educator. His untimely death at the relatively young age of 45 cut short a promising career.
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