John Rowe never thought about becoming an artist, he simply enjoyed drawing everyday of his life since he could hold a pencil. He thought of becoming a history teacher. But while standing in line to be the first person in his family to ever attend a four-year college he changed his mind, and became an art major instead. John attended Art Center College of Design as an Illustration Major.
After a brief stint as an Art Director in New York John found work as an illustrator. For 25 years he created artwork for over one hundred different clients for magazines, entertainment, publishing, advertising, including numerous book covers, movie posters, billboards, print ads, murals, magazine
covers as well as personal work for himself. His clients would go on to include Disney, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Harper Collins, The United Nations, National Geographic, The National Archives and many others. He served as the President of the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles from 1992 to 1994. He creates work for Disney Fine Art that is sold in galleries worldwide.
Along the way to becoming a working artist he had a few jobs to put himself through school and he took a few more jobs to educate himself about life. He worked with adolescents at a mental hospital all four years of college and later with kids at a boys home teaching wood shop and art. He was a gardener in CA, a maintenance man in NJ, an Art Director in NY. He even traveled as a guest artist
aboard Disney cruise ships painting in front of as many as 400 people. As a necessity to support his family as an artist he became accomplished in many areas and styles.
John has recently been working in oils on figurative work. His newest work is portrait/figure based. This is where he intends to take his career moving forward - looking at and into his family, friends and neighbors and the world around him with as much honesty and insight as he can. He is currently a member of the Portrait Society of America, The International Guild of Realistic Artists and an Accociate Living Master with the Art Renewal Center. He maintains a studio in Southern California.
* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 16th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.