Impressionist Boxer Portrait by Joseph Goss Cowell (1886-1968)
Our oil on canvas by Joseph Goss Cowell (1886-1968) depicting a boxer in the ring is painted in the Impressionist style with a dreamy palette of pastel colors reminiscent of the works of Mary Cassatt and Claude Monet. Signed "J. G. Cowell". Stretcher measures 30.5 by 39.5 inches. Period frame 36.25 by 45.25 by 1.75 inches is in good condition, with numerous scratches, nicks, dents and small losses.
Joseph Goss Cowell was born in 1886 in Peoria, Illinois. He attended Bradley College (1902-1906) and the University of Illinois (1907-1908). His art studies included time at the Art Students League of New York (1908-1909), the School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (1909-1912), the County Council School of Arts and Crafts in London (1914 - 1915) and the Académie Julian in Paris (1920), the private art school for painting and sculpture founded by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian. After serving in WWI he settled in Paris where he married Helen Parkhurst, an accomplished violinist, pianist and organist.
After returning to the U.S. he became an instructor at the Massachusetts School of Art (1922-1927) and the Associate Director of Boston Designers Art School (1927-1933). In Washington DC he served as Director of the National Art School (1940-1942).
The artist enjoyed a long and successful career as a painter, portraitist, muralist, sculptor, and designer of stained glass windows, church altars and memorials.
His commissioned portraits include Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, USN (1888-1957) which resides in the State House of Virginia, Judge J. Willis Martin (Pennsylvania Athletic Club), Lahiri Mahassaya (Self Realization Church, Washington D.C.) and several citizens of Wrentham where he and his family eventually settled.
His murals were commissioned by the Boston Clerical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Boston City Hospital, St. Charles Church in Waltham, Holy Ghost Church in Whitman, and the Tower Theater in Philadelphia. He painted altar panels in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in South Orange, New Jersey, and the Universalist Church St Paul's Church in Peoria. He created altar decorations at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC and altar paintings for the Sevayatan Temple in Midnapur, India. In St. Mary's Cathedral in Peoria, he completed a mural, a sculpture and altar decorations. He designed glass windows for the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. (Source: Tami Allen, 1996, for Wrentham Historical Society.)
