The Destroyer
On View In:
Gallery 301
Artist:   Arthur Wesley Dow  
Title:   The Destroyer  
Date:   c. 1911-1913  
Medium:   Oil on canvas  
Dimensions:   40 x 29 15/16 in. (101.6 x 76.04 cm) (sight) 47 1/2 x 37 3/8 in. (120.65 x 94.93 cm) (outer frame)  
Credit Line:   The Mary Ingebrand-Pohlad Endowment for Twentieth Century Paintings, the Frank Meyers Steiner American Western Art Fund, and the William and Harriet Ludwick Endowment for Western Art  
Location:   Gallery 301  

Born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Dow first trained in Boston and then traveled to Paris where he enrolled in the Académie Julian. Upon his return in 1887, Dow began studying the prints of the Japanese artist Hokusai and was appointed assistant curator of the Japanese collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1893. In 1911-12, Dow traveled though the American southwest and the following year he exhibited seventeen Grand Canyon pictures, including The Destroyer. Dow's painting style merged elements of Japonisme and Arts and Crafts principles of pure design, and in so doing he aligned the conventions of nineteenth-century landscape painting with ideas from eastern aestheticism.

Artist/Creator(s)     
Name:   Dow, Arthur Wesley  
Nationality:   American  
Life Dates:   American, 1857 - 1922  
 

Object Description  
  
Inscriptions:   Signature LLC, in purple: [Arthur W Dow]  
Classification:   Paintings  
Physical Description:   view of the Grand Canyon; purples in the foreground, oranges in background; blue and purple shades in sky  
Creation Place:   North America, United States, , ,  
Accession #:   2009.62  
Owner:   The Minneapolis Institute of Arts