The exhibition Elwyn George Gowen: Artist and Educator explores the networks of arts education that connected artists, designers, and institutions across early twentieth-century New England, through the career of Elwyn George Gowen (1895–1954). A graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1918, where he received highest honors, Gowen was trained in the principles of color, composition, and design. He continued his studies at the New York School of Interior Decoration and worked as an assistant to Harvard’s Dr. Denman W. Ross, an influential theorist of color, as well as collaborating with Jay Hambidge on the principles of Dynamic Symmetry, a design theory. His design practice encompassed textiles and interior decoration, earning him the Degree of Master Craftsman from The Society of Arts & Crafts, Boston.
In 1932, Gowen joined an outdoor painting class with Charles H. Woodbury in Ogunquit, Maine, an experience that redirected his career toward landscape and seascape painting. In 1935, Woodbury invited him to become an instructor and associate at his Ogunquit and Boston studios. Gowen also taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and other art schools and private studios throughout Maine and Massachusetts, eventually serving as Artist in Residence at Nasson College in Sanford, Maine. His career offers a distinctive lens through which to understand Ogunquit not as an isolated space of summer learning, but as part of a broader ecosystem of art education in New England, one in which ideas about design, color, composition, and painting circulated among schools, museums, artists, and independent studios.
