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Painter
and photographer Adger W. Cowans attended Ohio University
where he received a BFA in photography. He served in
the United States Navy as a photographer before moving
to New York, where he worked with Life magazine photographer
Gordon Parks and fashion photographer Henri Clarke.
He is the recipient of a John Hay Whitney Fellowship
and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez, Rosa
Parks Visiting Scholars Award, Wayne State University.
At
his first one man show, at the Heliography Gallery in
New York, Jacob Deschin of the New York Times described
Cowans' work as "boldly inventive and experimental…
and the artist is a craftsman to his fingertips."
Recent
major exhibitions include the upcoming Firenze Biennale
in Italy; 'Committed to the Image' at the Brooklyn Museum
of Art; 'A History of African American Photographers',
and 'Seeing Jazz', both at the Smithsonian Museum, and
the Detroit Institute of Art's 'Reflections in Black:
Smithsonian African American Photography'.
Cowans'
photographs have been exhibited at the George Eastman
House, the International Center of Photography, the
Chicago Institute of Design, and Harvard University.
This summer his works were included in 'Moments in Jazz',
an exhibition at Sotheby's in New York curated by Quashelle
Curtis.
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His
paintings and photographs are included in the collections
of Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, the late Mr. and Mrs. Romare
Bearden, the Schomburg Center, the Studio Museum in
Harlem and Howard University.
His
photographs have appeared in numerous publications including
the New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, Time, Life, Look,
Essence, Modern Photography and Paris March.
Commissions
include the UN Plaza Hotel, the SoHo Kitchen and Bar,
the Wall Street Kitchen and Bar, IBM, and Lenox Hill
Hospital, all in New York; The New York State Office
Building, Brooklyn, New York; The Children's Workshop
for the NAACP, New London, Connecticut, and the ARCO
Corporation, Philadelphia.
Cowans
recently presented his work at a conference at the University
of Paris, 'African American Diasporas: Consciousness
and Imagination'. He has also been a guest lecturer
at Empire State College, New York; Project Adapt, Detroit;
Montclair State College, the Cleveland Institute of
Art, and the Universite des Antilles et de la Guyane,
Martinique, French West Indies.
A
veteran still photographer in the motion picture industry,
Cowans has captured the works of such film directors
as Francis Ford Coppola, Bill Duke, Ron Howard, Spike
Lee and Sidney Lumet.
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Selected
Solo and Duo Exhibitions
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2001
1999
1989
1988
1985-6
1984
1981
1977
1975
1968
1967-8
1967
1966
1965
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Ronald
M Ollie Collection, "'New Works on Paper",
Brooklyn, NY
Gallary M, "Adger Cowans", New York
SIS Gallery, "Fragmented Illuminations", One
Man Show, New
York
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, "Light and
Shadow",
One Man Show, New York
National Conference of Artists Gallery, "Free Spirits",
Two Man Show with Kuumba Avery Boone, Detroit, MI
Raymond Kerr Gallery
Martinique International Black Arts Festival, "Suriname",
One Man Show, New York, Martinique,
West Indies
First
Women's Bank, "Morning of the Bule Queen"
(Experimental Polaroid Photograpy), New York
Greenespace Gallery, "Moments", New York
Jade Gallery, One Man Show, Pittsburgh, PA
Shado Gallery,
One Man Show, Oregon
City, OR
Friends Gallery at the James Van Der Zee Institute,
One Man Show, New York
Ketchum, Macleod and Grove Gallery,
One Man Show, New
York
United States Information Agency, Traveling
Africa;
Asia; Eastern Europe
Parent's Magazine, One
Man Show,
New York
Warwick and Legler, One
Man Show,
New York
Cunningham and Walsh, One
Man Show,
New York
Benton and Bowles, One
Man Show,
New York
Batten, Barton, Durston and Osborne,
One Man Show,
New York
Grey Advertising, One
Man Show,
New York
McCann-Erickson, One
Man Show,
New York
Heliography Gallery, One Man Show, New York
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Selected Exhibitions
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Firenze
Biennale, "Biennale Internazionale Dell' Arte Contemporanea",
Firenze, Italy
Detroit Institute of Arts, "Reflections in Black:
Smithsonian African American Photography", Detroit,
MI
Sotheby's, "Moments in Jazz", curated by Quashelle
Curtis, New York
Rush
Arts Gallery, Silent Photo Fundraiser to benefit Mfon
Essien, New York
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