Dennis Rowan was born in 1938 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received a BS degree from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in 1962 and an MFA degree from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 1964. He taught drawing, design, painting, and printmaking at the University of Illinois from 1962 to 2004. He currently works at his studio in downtown Urbana.
Mr. Rowan has exhibited his work in approximately 325 competitive invitational and solo exhibitions throughout the world. Some of the US venues where he has displayed his work include the Art Academy of Cincinnati, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Brandeis University, the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the City Art Museum of St. Louis, Cornell University, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Library of Congress, the Miami Arts Center, the Milwaukee Arts Center, the National Academy of Design, the Oklahoma Art Center, the Pasadena Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the San Diego Art Institute, the Seattle Art Museum, the Smithsonian Institute and the Walker Art Center. He has also shown his work in international exhibitions in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, England, Egypt, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Poland, Russia, Spain and Yugoslavia.
Mr. Rowan has received 66 prizes and awards for his work which can be found in 44 public collections. Those awards include
Berman Purchase Prize, 24th Annual Boston Printmakers’ Exhibition, Rose
Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
First Prize, Austrian Ministry of Culture, Vienna Graphics Biennial, Europehaus
Wein, Vienna, Austria
Purchase Prize, 2nd Biennial International de la Gravure-Cracovie, Krakow, Poland
Pauline Palmer Purchase Prize, 79th Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity,
Art Institute of Chicago
Yorkshire Arts Association Purchase Prize, British International Print Biennial,
Bradford City Museum, Bradford Yorkshire, England.
His work is included in the public collections of the Art Institute of Chicago,
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Brandeis University, the Honolulu Academy of
the Arts, the Kansas City Art Institute, the Litton Foundation, the Minneapolis
Institute of Art, R.J. Reynolds Industries, the Seattle Art Museum, San Diego
State College, and the University of Wisconsin.