Linfield to exhibit artwork of late Tribal Elder Frank Kowing

McMINNVILLE – One of Linfield University’s first studio art graduates will have his work displayed in the Linfield Gallery from Wednesday, Feb. 9, through Friday, March 18.

Frank Kowing’s paintings, sculptures and sketch books will be part of “Breathing the High-altitude Ether of Discovery.” The Linfield Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday.

Kowing was a member and Elder of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. He was born in McMinnville on April 1, 1944, and attended Sheridan and Ballston elementary schools. He graduated from McMinnville High School in 1962 and graduated from Linfield in 1966.

After serving in the U.S. Navy until 1968, he studied painting at the Rieveld Academy in The Netherlands and subsequently obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Penn State University in 1973. He was involved for several years in New York with art galleries and served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia, teaching art to developmentally disabled students.

He traveled throughout the world before settling in Maryland where he continued his lifelong career as a painter and curator of exhibitions in galleries and museums.

"Tree of Life" created in 2011 by late Tribal Elder Frank Kowing is displayed in the Linfield Gallery from Wednesday, Feb. 9, through Friday, March 18. (Contributed photo) 

“Deep communion with the mountains is as necessary to me as oxygen,” he said before his death in September 2016. “Nature beckons hypnotically and one must give in to the call.”

Political satire and poetic authenticity coalesce in Kowing’s impressionist and abstract expressionist paintings and found-object creations.

Kowing also published “Monuments, New and Selected Poems,” a collection of poetry, in 2009.

The exhibit is sponsored by the Lacroute Arts Series and Linfield Department of Art. The Lacroute Arts Fund provides programs featuring artists in the areas of music, art and visual culture, and theater and communication arts.

The gallery is located inside the James F. Miller Fine Arts Center on the university’s campus in McMinnville. Face coverings are required inside all Linfield buildings.

A reception will be held 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16.

"North Cascades" created in 2010 by late Tribal Elder Frank Kowing is displayed in the Linfield Gallery from Wednesday, Feb. 9, through Friday, March 18. (Contributed photo)