Adger W. Cowans
b. 1936
African Suite Series
1975
acrylic and gold paint on heavy black woven fabric
45 x 37-1/2 inches (image)
60-1/4 x 54-1/4 (overall, including black border)
signed, dated and titled

Exhibited: Dreyfuss Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI (1980).

Provenance: the collection of the artist

This amazing painting combines many of the artist's concerns in a media other than photography. The combing of the paint is a method first developed by Cowans, later influencing artists such as Ed Clark and Jack Whitten (both his good friends); the use of metallic dust rendering a lustrous and atmospheric effect on the surface plane of the painting, and finally, the geometric African theme in the subject, confirming his alignment with AfriCOBRA.

Adger Cowans was born and raised in Columbus, OH and he earned his B.F.A. in photography from Ohio University. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he moved to New York City in 1960 to work as an assistant to Gordon Parks at Life magazine. He was founding member of Kamoinge Workshop, an important photographic collective formed in 1963. His career in photography was paralleled by one in painting. He was an early member of AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), formed in 1968. George Nelson Preston, Ph.D., describes his work: His sense of organization is frequently African as seen in symmetrical, frontal placement of curves and diagonals mediated by axial bands of chromatically gradated hues against a black background. These bands of color can read into one's memory evoking the rainbow from a Hopi sand painting or the decorative band of an Ndebele marriage apron.

Adger's painting, Omowale (1975), was included in the seminal exhibit: The Search for Freedom: African American Abstract Painting 1945-75, Kenkeleba Gallery New York, NY

This is the first important work by Cowans to ever be sold at auction.