Thomas Millie Dow

Thomas Millie Dow ( born October 28, 1848 in Dysart, Fife, Scotland, † July 3, 1919 in St Ives, Cornwall, England) was a Scottish painter of the late Impressionism and important representative of the Glasgow Boys, a group of artists from the 19th and early 20th century.

Life and work

Thomas Millie Dow, born 1848 in Dysart in the Scottish region of Fife, received a legal education, as was expected of him, his father and brother to follow in the family law firm in Kirkcaldy. However, Dow decided against a law career in 1877 and went to Paris to study painting. He initially enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux -Arts under Jean -Léon Gérôme. In 1879 he studied at the Académie Julian and in the studio of Emile Auguste Carolus -Duran.

Among the many young British and American students who were staying in the late 1870s for art studies in Paris, were two men who were close friends of Dow were: the Englishman William Stott and the American Abbott Handerson Thayer. Both men should wield considerable influence on the artistic work of Dow. In Paris, Dow also closed friendship with the Glasgow artists James Paterson, Alexander Mann, John Lavery and Alexander Roche.

Between 1877 and 1879 Dow spent the winter in Paris and undertook together with his fellow students and Paterson man Malexkursionen to Barbizon, Grez -sur -Loing and Fontainebleau. He spent the summer painting and drawing on the east coast of Scotland and stayed frequently in Stonehaven and Cullen. In 1878 he exhibited for the first time out at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, and in 1879 at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. During this time, Dow mainly painted with watercolor and pastel colors, but also with oil paints.

In September 1883 Dow sailed on the Devonia from Glasgow to New York and traveled from there to the Hudson River upstream to Cornwall -on-Hudson, where his friend Abbott Thayer lived with his wife Kate Bloede. Dow remained in the United States until the summer of 1884. During these months he created exquisite landscape paintings, including The Hudson River, which today is located in Glasgow at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

On his return to Glasgow, Dow Glasgow Boys followed, a group of artists to William York MacGregor, known for her work made ​​the Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in Scotland. Dow used at this time the Glasgow Centre of MacGregor and shared the apartment with Allan McLean, a lawyer and art collector. 1885 Dow became a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colour.

Between 1885 and 1887, Dow often traveled from Glasgow to Moniaive in the county of Dumfriesshire, where earlier James Paterson had stopped. There Dow also painted his first allegories. During this time the painting The Spring was born. He established himself as a recognized artist and was able to present his works in London Grosvenor Gallery and Grafton Gallery. Soon followed by exhibitions at the Secession in Vienna, Munich and Berlin, and later in cities around the United States.

1887 Dow was included in the Glasgow Art Club and the New English Art Club, where he regularly exhibited his work until 1891. 1888 Dow spent the summer in the mountains of Switzerland and Germany. There he painted some time with his friend William Stott. It emerged on works such as Moonlight In The Alps. In the spring of 1889 he traveled to Morocco, where he created some well-known pastel paintings.

1891 Dow married the widowed Florence Pilcher, nee Cox. Florence brought a boy and a girl into the marriage. In 1892 their daughter Mary Rosamond was born. 1894 the family moved from Glasgow in the southwestern English county of Cornwall to St Ives. There Dow joined with his friends and fellow painter Louis Grier and Lowell Dyer as members of the St Ives Arts Club. Although far from Dow lived from Glasgow, he was so well known that his paintings were shown regularly in Glasgow and the surrounding cities.

From 1896 Dow spent with his family during the winter months in Italy. There, he created numerous watercolors and pastels of valleys and villages in the Apennines and of Veneto. In addition, he continued to paint allegorical scenes such as The Kelpie that is missing and is only as photographic reproduction today. But his most frequent subject was in both oil and pastel of the port of St Ives and the Cornish landscape. In 1898, Dow member of the Pastel Society and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.

Dow died in 1919 in St Ives, and was buried in the neighboring village of Zennor.