Whether people have it need it love it or hate it they probably do not think much about the crumpled cash in their back pocket. Not beyond its most well-known utility anyway. People tend to think of money in terms of making saving and spending regards only.
Not Robert Dowd.
The Pop Art pioneer who died in 1995 studied paper bills intently scrutinizing each pictorial for its intricacies and fibers. He stretched notes well beyond their miniature dimensions slathered them with acrylic and replaced revered U.S. leaders with his favorite painterly predecessors – effectively transforming cash from its economical utility to its imaginative destiny.
If his name or cash-inspired images do not ring a bell it is because Dowd halted his burgeoning work at the close of the 1960s. A run-in with the FBI who suspected him of counterfeiting U.S. currency was a considerable setback in the artist’s career.
Today Dowd is recognized as a forefather of the pop art movement but his fame is virtually confined to art aficionados. In an attempt to spotlight Dowd’s fleeting yet significant legacy the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art is showcasing “Robert Dowd: Pop Art Money.” This is the first exhibit to showcase Dowd’s work posthumously.
In 1962 Dowd’s work was featured in “New Paintings of Common Objects” at the Pasadena Art Museum – the first Pop Art show in the United States. Dowd displayed his work throughout the 60s but did not achieve the same adoration or longevity other artists during his time like Roy Lichtenstein Jim Dine Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol enjoyed.
Dr. Michael Zakian director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art said Dowd’s personality prevented him from achieving fame on par with his peers. Zakian described the artist as a shy withdrawn individual – a far cry from Warhol for example who captivated the media with famous friends and flamboyant antics.
“Historically Dowd is significant because he was one of the very first pop artists Zakian said.
Acrylic renditions of U.S. currency and stamps dominate the 72 works on display at the museum. Zakian said he tried to juxtapose works to show that Dowd was constantly re-interpreting his subjects and generating fresh insights.
Instead of just painting the bills exactly as they are Dowd would do things like paint presidents’ portraits slightly different to give them more personality Zakian said.
Andrew Jackson’sa mug, for example, appears debonair in one painting and slightly baffled in another.
Dowd purposely muddled and misspelled the slogans and credos printed on American currency. He substituted artists for presidents – Paul Gauguin in one, Vincent Van Gogh in another. In one set of ten-dollar-bill paintings, Dowd toyed with hypothetical catastrophe: The treasury building is ravaged by flames in one and split open by a tornado in another.
The artist also re-administered color by creating bright, exotic renditions of the faded notes we thumb at the cash register. Viewers are forced to examine currency beyond its primary function and muse over the symbols imprinted upon it. Dowd’s later works explore the circus, illusionism and quantum physics and are displayed on the second floor of the museum.
During his quantum physics phase, Dowd painted objects to look at as though they were breaking into separate energies. Zakian borrowed several Dowd works from Jack Quinn, an art collector who lives in Beverly Hills. He also borrowed works from the Long Beach Museum of Art. Dowd’s wife provided the artist’s notes and sketches for research purposes. Weisman interns, seniors Clarissa Jones and Sabrina Lovett assisted Zakian with extensive research for the exhibit and in developing a catalog, which is on sale at the Weisman.
According to Zakian, the exhibit has garnered buzz among art historians and curators at the University of California Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. The Los Angeles Times covered the exhibit in their Sunday edition.
No curator cared about his work until I decided to do the exhibition Zakian said. The Weisman is small and we’re in the same county as some of the largest [art museums] in the nation. The Dowd exhibit is a way to draw people to Pepperdine. I try to seek important artists that have been overlooked by larger museums.”