| Facts/Data
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Birth
1878 (North Adams, Massachusetts)
Death
1957 (New Rochelle, New York)
Lived/Active
New York
Copyright by Owner
Often Known For
seasonal landscape, genre, illustrator
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  A fine-art painter and magazine illustrator, Robert Owen contributed to "Cosmopolitan", "Harper's" and "Century", and other magazines before moving in 1910 to Bagnall, Connecticut to paint his signature seasonal landscapes with farmhouses, winding roads and covered bridges.
Ten years later, he returned to New York City, opened his own gallery and resumed illustration commissions. In 1941, he moved to New Rochelle, New York where he became artist-in-residence at the Thomas Paine Memorial Museum.
Sources include: Spanierman Gallery |
Biography from Spanierman Gallery:
|  Robert Emmett Owen was a successful artist best known for his Impressionist views of rural landscapes. His color-filled paintings capture the moods and seasonal splendor of the New England countryside.
Owen began his art training at the Drury Academy in his home town of North Adams, Massachusetts. In 1897, while supporting himself by working at a local retail establishment, he contributed pen and ink drawings to "Life Magazine", initiating what would be a long and productive career as an illustrator. The next year, he received a scholarship to study at the Eric Pape School of Art in Boston.
After three years of training in Boston, Owen achieved further success from his commercial work, selling drawings to the "Boston Globe", "National Magazine", and "Brown Brook Magazine". Later, his work would appear in "Scribners Magazine", "Harper’s Monthly", and other publications.
In 1901, Owen moved to New York and continued his training at the Art Students League, the Chase School, and the National Academy of Design. Among his instructors were Frederick Mulhaupt and Leonard Ochtman. In New York, Owen became aware of the art of leading American Impressionists and began to create works that reflected the influence in particular of Willard Metcalf, J. Alden Weir, and Childe Hassam.
After nine years in New York, Owen moved to Bagnall, Connecticut, near Stamford, in order to paint landscape subjects directly. In the period that followed, he exhibited at the Greenwich Society of Artists in 1912, the National Academy of Design in 1912 and 1913, and the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts in 1915 (to which he was elected a member).
His work was well liked by critics and the public, and he received a number of important commissions from private clients for both murals and oils, including a series of twenty paintings ordered in 1919 by Temple Gwathmey, the former president of the New York Stock Exchange. In 1923, Owen created a series of images of Fort Ticonderoga for Stephen H.P. Pell. Eight of these works were reproduced as full-page illustrations in "Harper’s Magazine". Later he received commissions from Edward Stettinus, a former Secretary of State, and Percy Rockefeller.
Owen returned to New York in 1920 and opened a gallery on Madison Avenue, called the Robert Emmett Owen New England Landscape Gallery, where he exhibited and sold his own work. The gallery, which moved in the 1930s to West 57th Street, was successful for twenty-one years. When the United States entered World War II in 1941, Owen closed the gallery and moved to New Rochelle, New York, where he became the artist in residence at the Thomas Paine Memorial Museum.
From the beginning of his career, Owen demonstrated a capacity for tight and precise draftsmanship, which enabled him to find success as an illustrator. Later, when he became influenced by Impressionism, he adopted a vivid palette and painted with loose, vigorous strokes, while continuing to portray forms with a firm sense of reality. His images capture the varying moods of the New England countryside and portray architectural and landscape forms with a truthfulness that has been likened to the poetry of Robert Frost.
In addition to the National Academy of Design, the Greenwich Society of Artists, and the Connecticut Academy of the Fine Arts, Owen showed his work at the Anderson Galleries, New York; the Ainslee Gallery, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Art Institute of Chicago; Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts; the Williston Academy, Massachusetts; the Albany Institute of History and Art, New York; the Orlando Public Library, Florida; and the Allied Artists of America, New York. His work may be found in the collections of the Frick Art Museum, New York; the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut; and the Greenwich Public Library. |
Biography from Williams American Art Galleries:
| Robert Emmett Owen, a New York City artist, was born in North Adams, Massachusetts in 1878. He began his art studies at Drury Academy in his hometown and quickly gained notice. At age 19, in 1897, he had several drawings accepted for publication by Life Magazine. The next year he received a scholarship to the Eric Pape School of Art in Boston, where he worked in the art department of the Boston Globe to pay for school.
Owen moved to New York City in 1901 where he rapidly achieved renown as an illustrator and worked for various publications including Harper’s Bazaar, Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, Scribner’s and Cosmopolitan while continuing his training at the Art Students League, the Chase School, and the National Academy of Design.
In 1910 Owen moved to Bagnall, Connecticut, to concentrate on landscapes full time. He had the opportunity there to paint outdoors in all seasons. He also received numerous commissions from many prominent citizens. In 1919, Temple Gwathmey, former president of the New York Stock Exchange, commissioned a series of twenty paintings, and in 1923, Stephen H. P. Pell commissioned a series of images for Fort Ticonderoga (eight of which were reproduced as full-page illustrations in Harper’s.
Owen also received commissions from Percy Rockefeller and Edward Stettinus, former Secretary of State. Owen moved back to New York City in 1920, and opened his own gallery while continuing to do magazine illustrations. The gallery, called the Robert Emmett Owen New England Landscape Gallery, only exhibited and sold his own work. It moved several times during the next 21 years, always remaining successful until Owen closed it in 1941 and moved to New Rochelle, New York to be the artist-in-residence at the Thomas Paine Memorial Museum.
He passed away in 1957 in New Rochelle.
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