October 24, 2016

Museum Leadership Program will welcome celebrated Philadelphia artist, John Dowell Jr., for a lecture on Wednesday, October 26 at 5:15pm in the URBN Annex Screening Room. Dowell, widely known as a printmaker, is also a highly accomplished painter, water-colorist, ceramicist, photographer and musician. His art is in over 500 museum collections in the United States and abroad. This lecture is part of the iCreate series sponsored by The Brandywine Workshop and Archives in partnership with local art galleries and museums. The series features six artists who, along with architect Ted Agoos, are working to create a collaborative printmaking project as part of Brandywine’s iCreate initiative. The project involves the traditional relief process of printmaking in the creation of a portfolio of prints and an exhibit employing new, durable materials for large-scale plates, which after printing can be installed outdoors in a public space.

The goal is to employ an integrated approach to art-making that involves the use of diverse artists and aesthetics, new materials and technologies, and expands the conception of printmaking through a collaborative project that involves laser-cutting, metal fabrication and LED lighting. The exhibition will open in two parts: temporarily later this month to show progress; and in the spring of 2017 the full exhibition of all artworks including the dedication of the finished public artwork will open on Brandywine’s Grass Plaza on the Avenue of the Arts.

John .E. Dowell, Jr. was born in 1941 in Philadelphia. He attended Tyler School of Art where he earned a bachelor’s degree in printmaking and later earned a master’s degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. Upon completion of his masters Dowell earned the distinction of a Master printer at the Tamarind Institute, which was in Los Angeles at the time.

Brandywine Workshop and Archives was founded in 1972. The organization remains committed to the creation, documentation and preservation of a legacy of culturally diverse American art and insuring the participation of multiethnic artists and audiences in the field of fine art printmaking and related media technologies. The National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency is the lead sponsor for the iCreate Project.