Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"Truman Lowe was born in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1944. His Native American nationality is Ho Chunk and he is of Winnebago heritage. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse with a B.A. degree in Art and later received his M.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1973. He is still living in Wisconsin as a sculptor and installation artist and is a retired professor from the University of Wisconsin.
Recurrent themes in his art are real and imagined aspects of his Native American heritage and the natural environment. For Lowe, the human history of the landscape is just as important as its geological record, and he alludes to people who integrate their lives, culture and society with the earth. He also has a particular fascination for moving water: it symbolizes our lives in the sense of where we came from and where we are going. Lowe integrates the symbolism of moving water with a sense of history. Its movement represents the accumulated contributions of generations of humans, inspired by the artist’s youth spent on the banks of the Black River.
From October 3 – 25, 2001 an exhibition entitled “Lasting Impressions” was displayed at the Joseph Gross and Lionel Rombach Galleries at the University of Arizona. Truman Lowe was one of 10 distinguished artists who participated in the exhibition. This collaboration between master printer Jack Lemon and the 10 Native American artists resulted in a portfolio of prints representative of current trends in contemporary Native American art. Bringing their work together not only showcases individual talents but also represents the state of avant-garde American Indian artistic consciousness in the early 21st century. The same exhibition was also shown at the Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University from October 14 – December 7, 2003. Sun Form along with prints by Mario Martinez and Emmi Whitehorse were purchased by the Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University, something made possible by a grant from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation.
Truman Lowe’s Sun Form illustrates a brown square edged with triangular shaped, sun-like rays extending around the square’s perimeter. Within the square there appear to be random shapes symbolic of a computer, letter, cellular phone, airplanes, automobiles and figures that all have the consistency and contrast of texture typical of woodcuts. These shapes and symbols rest above a light blue, yellow and green ground that could be symbolic of moving water also emphasized by the woodcut’s texture. These elements refer to the artist’s love of natural materials and water. Lowe’s work is very rich and complex and the symbols within Sun Form create a metaphor appropriate to our generation and the future.
Truman Lowe is “sculptural” in his outlook and his art skirts a fine line between the abstract and the representational. This print is related to other examples by him in its use of woodcut, although this is not his most characteristic medium. The majority of his work is three-dimensional whereas this print is two-dimensional and was specifically made to symbolize recent developments in contemporary Native American art.
Bibliography: Eiteljorg Museum. Contemporary Masters: The Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art Vol. 1. Phoenix: Media Concepts Group, Inc., 1999: 38 – 42; Jones, Lisa; Graduate Assistant at Western Carolina University’s Fine Art Museum. Personal Communication via E-mail. Feb. 24, 2011; Trautmann, Rebecca; Museum Scholarship Group at National Museum of the American Indian.
Personal Communication via E-mail. Feb. 25, 2011.
Submitted by Katelyn Harper 66
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Truman Lowe uses traditional motifs inspired by his heritage and his early life in Wisconsin, but he infused these motifs with the unexpected and playful. He is particularly amused by the futile attempts of science to classify the unclassifiable, and his work often reflect that amusement."