Marilyn Bower (1941-)

Living: Washington State, formerly Nebraska

Marilyn is known for her landscape paintings of the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions.  Most of her life has been spent in plains states, primarily Nebraska and Kansas.  The space, the play of light on the land and the skies are prominent features of her work.  A recent move to the Pacific Northwest has her revisiting her approach to this, a very different landscape.

Raised in Wichita, KS in the 1940’s and 1950’s, she gained an early appreciation of nature.  Her father, a veterinarian, would take her on his calls to farms and ranches in the area.  These were teaching opportunities in which he could raise her awareness of details of the natural world.  He would call her attention to the names of the animals, crops and vegetation they would see, as well as the sounds and even the smells on the heavy, summer air.  Her interest in the landscape was fostered on these trips.  About this time, as a grade school child, she was also enrolled in private art lessons.  These involved painting copies of great art.  Skills in drawing and use of materials grew with these classes.  As a young adult, however, she had the desire to make her own paintings.  Long before the term “plein air” was common she took her materials and went outside to paint.  And so, through this practice, she began to learn how to represent the 3-D world in a 2-D medium. 

In the meantime she had graduated from Kansas State University, with honors, in 1963, but the degree was not in art.  Parents who had weathered the depression did not consider art as a reliable way to make a living.  So, painting and drawing continued in her spare time as she worked, married and raised a daughter.

For about 10 years she painted as a water colorist, having gained an interest in the medium after seeing a national watercolor exhibition.  Gradually she shifted to oil paints as she liked the depth of color and the ability to paint in a more spontaneous manner.

Considered self-taught, she nevertheless credits the valuable insights she has gained from workshops with artists whose work she admires.  These include Hal Holoun, Skip Whitcomb, Jim Wilcox and Albert Handell.  Growth also comes from study of books and magazines and trips to museum shows.  Seeing Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series and haystack series in the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris in the early 1980’s had a dramatic effect on her understanding of light in the landscape.

Her paintings are oils in a realist style with emphasis on the solitary experience.  Man’s presence is indicated by crop patterns, roads and occasional buildings.  Figures are rarely present.

While not an ecological activist, she has strong convictions as to the restorative value of the land on the human spirit.  Her wish is to represent the beauty of the earth so that viewers will see value in its preservation.

Selected Awards.
Featured Top 100 Artist, Arts for the Parks national competition, 1997.  National Park Academy of the Arts, Jackson Hole, WY
Competition winner, American Artist magazine “Preserving Our Natural Resources,” August, 1990.
Featured artist, “Impact – the Art of Nebraska Women,” Hagge, 1988.  Selected as an outstanding woman artist in Nebraska
Purchase award, T. J. Majors Competitive, Peru State College, Peru, Nebraska, 1989
Purchase award, “Art in the Woods, Overland Park Arts Commission regional competition, Overland Park, KS, 1989

Selected Museum and Artist Assoc. Shows.
Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art, solo show, David City, Nebraska, 2008
Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters annual shows, 2007, 2006, 2004, 2003
Arts for the Parks Top 100 artist, Arts for the Parks national competition, 1997
Arts for the Parks Top 200, National Academy of the Arts, Jackson Hole, WY, 2004 (2), 1998, 1996, 1990
19th Joslyn Biennial, 7 state competition, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE, 1986
Plainsman Museum, solo show Aurora, NE, 1989

Publications.
Who’s Who in American Art, 2009, page 144 and 2010.
Southwest Art, “Wyoming Through Artists’ Eyes,” August, 1998, pg. 46, 48
1997 Arts for the Parks Top 100, page 29
Watercolor Impressions, Slusser and Magaret, 1995
American Artist magazine, “Preserving Our Natural Resources,” Aug., 1990
Impact – the Art of Nebraska Women,” Hagge, 1988, pg. 58, 59
Prairie Fire newspaper, Lincoln, NE, Oct. 2008, Vol. 2, No. 10, pgs. 2, 19, 20

Memberships.
Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters (R.M.P.A.P.), former American Plains Artists, former
Peninsula Art League.

Information provided by the artist.