Obituary of Marvin S. Lowe

Marvin S. Lowe, May 19, 1922-April 28, 2010 Born in Brooklyn in 1922, Marvin Lowe was the beloved son of Ada Liebowitz and older brother to Robert. Following his attendance at Brooklyn Technical High School, where he began his studies in music, Lowe played tenor saxophone in New York nightclubs and across the country with big bands such as Raymond Scott, Woody Herman and Bobby Sherwood. He fought in Europe and the Pacific during World War II where his service on the battleship Arkansas included playing in Artie Shaw's Navy Band. Upon return from the War, he studied music composition at the Juilliard School in NYC. A second stint of national touring with bands took him to St. Louis, where he met the love of his life, Juel Watkins, professional dancer, singer and Vaudeville performer. The two were married April 1, 1949. Shortly after receiving his BA degree in English Literature at Brooklyn College in 1953, while still actively playing in traveling bands, Lowe grew weary of the distractions associated with this nomadic lifestyle. He began frequenting the major NY art museums, subsequently developing an interest in drawing. Lowe's friend, Larry Rivers, the iconic art figure at the time in NYC, spotted Lowe's talent for drawing and encouraged him to concentrate on improving his draughtsmanship. Heeding this advice, and with wife Juel and new daughter Melissa (1955) in tow, Lowe traveled to the University of Iowa to study with internationally known printmaker, Mauricio Lasansky. Lowe received his MFA in printmaking in 1960 and went on to teach art at Berea College and Bucknell University. His teaching and professional career developed more fully at Indiana University where he devoted twenty-four years as a professor in the School of Fine Arts. There, he and colleague, Rudy Pozzatti, built one of the premier printmaking programs in the United States. Lowe's prints and mixed media paintings have been shown in over two hundred national, international and invitational exhibitions, and can be found in over eighty permanent museum, university and corporate collections, most notably the British Museum, Japan Print Association (Tokyo), the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Smithsonian Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. He has had over fifty one-person exhibitions, received over thirty awards, among them a National Endowment for the Arts Artist's Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant. As he neared retirement in 1991, he experienced a renaissance of creativity, making numerous monotypes, constructions, paintings and collages. Upon the death of his dear wife and partner in life, Juel, in 2002, Lowe moved to Tucson to be with his daughter, Melissa, son-in-law Jory, and granddaughter Claire. There he continued to live and work in his studio until his death. His work is displayed throughout the Memorial Student Union and several other buildings on the University of Arizona campus. Indiana University friends and colleagues of Lowe, Rudy Pozzatti and Wendy Calman state that "his most important contributions are the least tangible. His exciting intellect, his energy, his tenacity, his generosity, and his great sense of humor have given those of us fortunate enough to have worked with him a presence that will remain as an inspiration to us all." Lowe is survived by his daughter, Melissa Lowe Hancock, son-in-law, Jory Hancock and his sisters, granddaughter, Claire Elise Hancock, and nieces and nephews, Geoffrey, Greg and Cynthia Cortelyou, Wedge and Kelly Watkins and extended family. The legacy of his life lives on through them and the many friends and students whose lives he touched. To view or make entries to the online guestbook, please go to www.Legacy.com and type Marvin Lowe in the "obituary search" window. Also, to learn more about the artist and to see his work go to www.marvinlowe.com.