ABOUT

Ken Bowman

the artist.

Ken Bowman

Ken Bowman was born in Denver, Colorado in 1937 and educated at the University of Colorado and the Art Institute of Chicago, BFA 1963. One of his works was included in the “100 Years, 100 Artists” exhibition at the Art Institute. His art was shown in New York City and is in several museum collections. He is one of the original founding artists of the “Rhino Horn” group, artists who exhibited at the New School for Social Research in New York in 1970.

As part of Rhino Horn, Ken Bowman was one of several figurative artists who exhibited together between 1967 and 1978 and then again in 1994. These significant exhibitions generally included a core group of Rhino Horn members, as well as “guest exhibitors,” who were invited to show their work by Rhino Horn artists. They chose the “Rhino Horn” name to signify the strength and virility of their work.

These significant American artists have persevered through all phases of the last four decades. The importance of this group in art history must be permanently recorded as they and their “Friends” have continued the figurative strain of German Expressionism in the United States. This segment of American paintings and sculptures retains its originality in the face of conformity and has masterfully recorded the angst, violence and happenings of these most turbulent times. (excerpted from the Figurative Expressionism website) www.figurativeexpressionism.com

Additional information about the Rhino Horn artists can also be found through this link to Berkshire Fine Arts.

Ken Bowman’s museum collections include: University of California Art Museum, Berkley, California and the Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado. Private collections include Beatrice Foods, Exeter Petroleum and the Janus Foundation.

The Rhino Horn Group

“Our art is involved with life; it is concerned with humanity, with emotion. We will not listen to explanations from or about the technically minded artist of yesterday. Just as abstract expressionism – the art of the fifties – was superseded by pop, op, hard edge, minimal and color field the art of the sixties – so now a new art, a humanistic art, will characterize the seventies.” From the Rhino Horn manifesto.

Art is part of that wish for immortality, wholeness and love, a body of emotions, belief, thought, objects we seek to inhabit forever.

– Ken Bowman

I think of Russian icons,
Japanese motifs,
work and leisure,
not always in that order.

– Ken Bowman

Ken Bowman Biographical Data

Born: Denver, Colorado, 1937
Died: Denver, Colorado 2014
Educated: University of Colorado
Art Institute of Chicago, BFA, 1963

One Man-Exhibitions:

  • 2006 Edge Gallery, Denver, Colorado
  • 1983 Sullivan Bicenius Gallery, Denver, Colorado
  • 1979, 1973, 1971, 1970 Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York City

Museum Collections:

  • Utah Museum of Art, Salt Lake City
  • University of California Art Museum, Berkeley
  • Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
  • Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Private Collections:

  • Beatrice Foods
  • Denver Water Board
  • Exeter Petroleum
  • Wells Fargo, Denver
  • Janus Foundation
  • Alan Patricof Enterprises
  • Leonard Lewis, Boston/Palm Springs
  • Ducker, Dewey & Seawell, P.C.

Publications:

  • Who’s Who in American Art
  • Barry Schwartz “The New Humanism” Praeger, New York 1974
  • New York Art review, 2nd Edition, MacMillan Publishing Co., New York; Collier
  • MacMillan Publishers London; 3rd Edition, American References, Inc.
  • Website, Leonard Lewis, Boston Collector: www.figurativeexpressionism.com

Taught painting at the Black Hawk Mountain School of Art (summer school), Black Hawk, Colorado

Group exhibitions to include:

  • Celebrate Colorado Artists at the DCPA
  • Edge Gallery, Denver, Colorado
  • Wynkoop Brewery, Denver, Colorado
  • Golden Door Galley, Denver, Colorado
  • “Denver Art Works”, Mayor’s Invitational , City and County Building, Denver, Colorado
  • “One Size Fits All”, Bellarmine College, Louisville, Kentucky
  • “West ’81/Art and the Law”, Minnesota Museum of Art
  • “Colorado Annual”, Curator’s Choice, Denver Art Museum
  • “100 Artists,100 Years”, Art Institute of Chicago
  • “Painterly Realism” Watson de Nagy Gallery, Houston
  • Sebastian Moore Gallery, Denver, Colorado
  • Artemesia Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
  • “Uncommon Visions” Memorail Art Gallery, Rochester, New York
  • Sebastian Moore Gallery, Denver, Colorado
  • “Painterly Realism” originated at Watson de Nagy Gallery, Houston, Texas and traveled to Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Waco Creative Arts Center, Texas
  • “20 Colorado Artists” Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
  • Janus Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
  • “Spree ‘76”, Museum of Natural History, Denver, Colorado
  • Harlan Gallery, Tucson, Arizona
  • Randolph-Macon Women’s College, Lynchburg, Virginia
  • Hunter-Meek Gallery, Taos, New Mexico
  • “All Colorado Exhibition” Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
  • “Metropolitan Exhibition” Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
  • Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland
  • Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana
  • Third Biennial of Art, Medellin, Colombia, S.A.
  • Wetherspoon Gallery, University of North Carolina, Durham
  • National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York City
  • “Rhino Horn”, New School for Social Research, New York City