Owen, R[obert] Emmett (1873-1957)

Born in North Adams, MA, Owen grew up in a farming family, moving to Boston at age twenty on a scholarship to study at the Eric Pape School of Art. Later, he would study at Art Students League, the Chase School and the National Academy of Design. Like many other aspirational artists of the day, Owen created illustrations for periodicals—Cosmopolitan, Scribner’s, Harper’s, Life—and for literary works, including the well-known author Hamlin Garland’s short story “The River’s Warning” (1902), Helen Fuller Orton’s Bobby of Cobblefield Farm (1922), and Percy K. Fitzhugh’s “Tom Slade” series of Boy Scout books. A turning point arrived in 1910, when Owen visited Connecticut and devoted himself to painting this region, regardless of the season; farmers called him “the feller who don’t mind the weather” (“Owen’s Pictures”). His NDG painting is typical in its vivid fall colors arranged in bold masses, in this case buildings of the Higgins Mill located in Worthington, MA. In 1920 Owen returned to New York with the novel idea of opening a gallery devoted to selling his own work, the Robert Emmett Owen New England Landscape Gallery. It would remain open at different locations until World War II, after which he was artist in residence at the Thomas Paine Cottage Museum. 5 works viewable at a 1935 Rains Gallery auction catalog. 3 more images at FAP. His papers are at the Archives of American Art.

Sources consulted: “Owen’s Pictures on Exhibition,” Orlando Sentinel 1 June 1925: 5.

Works in the New Deal Collection at GVCA by R Emmett Owen: