Eve Drewelowe
"Stardust Sculpture" (Little Bryce, Utah)
c. 1933

About the Item

Jim's of Lambertville Fine Art Gallery is proud to present this piece by Eve Drewelowe (1899 - 1988). Landscape painter, Eve Drewelowe, was the eighth of thirteen children born in New Hampton, Iowa in 1899. She attended the University of Iowa, Iowa City, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic and Plastic Arts and was the first recipient of the University’s Masters of Painting degree. Following her graduation, Drewelowe moved to Boulder, Colorado, with her husband, Jacob Van Ek. He worked at the University of Colorado eventually becoming the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Drewelowe also taught at the University, first at the School of Engineering and then in the Department of Fine Arts. The couple traveled the world extensively and, although Drewelowe painted during their travels, Eve's love of Colorado and the West became apparent through the number of pieces she created depicting the region. During nearly seven decades as an artist working in impressionistic, social realistic and abstract expressionistic styles, Drewelowe executed more than 1,000 works in various media including, oil, watercolor, pen and ink. Drewelowe had one-person exhibitions at the University of Colorado, 1930; the Denver Art Museum, 1933, 1936, 1939; and the Argent Galleries, New York, 1940, 1941. Other exhibitions included the Denver Art Museum; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Kansas City Art Institute; PAFA; AIC; New York World's Fair; NAWA; and NMWA. Drewelowe's works are found in the collections of the University of Colorado; University of Iowa School of Art and Art History, Iowa City; Harkness House, London; and Utah State University, Logan.

Creator:
Eve Drewelowe (1899 - 1989, American)
Creation Year:
c. 1933
Dimensions:
Height: 23.5 in (59.69 cm)Width: 27 in (68.58 cm)
Medium:
Oil,Board
Period:
1930-1939
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Lambertville, NJ
Reference Number:
Seller: JOL1119220041stDibs: LU37412205942
View Invoice

Shop All Eve Drewelowe

Eve Drewelowe

From her earliest memory, Eve Drewelowe wanted to be an artist, and she became the first student to receive a masters of fine arts from the University of Iowa. After graduation, she went with her new husband to Boulder, Colorado, where she soon found herself in the role of dean’s wife. Eventually that responsibility and its “chores” proved to be too restrictive. After a health crisis, Drewelowe had a self-described “reincarnation” in which she resolved to make a place for her creativity. Naturally effusive, she yet valued being alone, and her strong feelings for life were expressed in her exuberant paintings. Growing up on an Iowa farm, Drewelowe developed a love for the land from her “environmentalist” father, who died when she was eleven. Subsequently, The Dean of the Graduate School at Iowa served as a father-figure when he facilitated her entry into the graduate program in art. Seemingly skeptical, Carl Seashore secretly wanted the young woman to “establish a first in the history of art training across the nation,” as the artist would later reminisce. Drewelowe graduated in 1924, and she later was a benefactor of what became one of the nation’s leading college art programs. At college, Drewelowe met and married a political science student, Jacob van Ek. Accepting a teaching position at the University of Colorado, van Ek moved to Boulder with his bride, who pursued her interest by helping found the Boulder Artists’ Guild. In 1928-1929, they traveled around the world to twenty-three countries for thirteen months, during which Drewelowe filled seven sketchbooks. With her husband now a dean, she threw herself into remodeling their house, a domestically acceptable creative project. Balancing her art and her duties as a dean’s wife, Drewelowe felt increasing frustration, and her health began to suffer. In the catalogue of a 1988 retrospective, she gave voice to her desire for self-determination: “Housewife! What an odious word! First! Foremost! Always! My waking thought from an embryo was on my need to be an artist!” Traveling to New York for her second solo exhibition in 1940, she stopped at the Mayo Clinic, where she was diagnosed as having a gastric polyp. This experience led to a new dedication to her painting, a complete turnaround in which she called her “reincarnation.” Inspired by the Rocky Mountains, she painted animated landscapes that pulsated with energy -- as if still in motion from generative forces. With a rainbow palette, Drewelowe created visionary scenes by intensifying colors in lively, rippling patterns. ©David Cook Galleries, LLC