Jim Dow

Artist Works

Cowgirl, Longhorn Ballroom, Dallas, TX - 1979
20 x 16 inches C-type color photograph, Ed. of 25

Artist Bio

Jim Dow’s photographs focus on the passage of time as it is recorded in landscapes from North Dakota to Great Britain to Argentina.  Using an 8 x 10 inch view camera, Dow turns his lens to roadside signs, aging buildings, and interiors that feel locked in another era.  His images honestly record the scenes before his camera, avoiding sentiments of nostalgia while paying tribute to marks made to the land by current and past residents.  A leading American photographer, Dow pushes his viewer to reconsider familiar surroundings and discern the beauty and cultural history hidden in a North Dakota car wash, Argentinean barbershop, or British convenience store.

Jim Dow is an internationally exhibited artist represented in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, J. Paul Getty Museum, Library of Congress, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.  Dow has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, LEF Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship among many other grants and commissions.  His work has been published in Marking the Land (2007) and Where We Live: Photographs from the Berman Collection (2006) as well as in international magazines and academic and fine art journals.  Dow has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts for over twenty years.