PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Paid Sponsor Partnership: Philadelphia Corporation for Aging
At 84, artist John E. Dowell, Jr. is still creating and challenging existing assumptions.
“Can you paint silence?” he asks.
He’s experimenting with texture for a new work called “Hope”.
“I like discovering and finding things that I think you have not seen,” he says.
Dowell tells Action News anchor Tamala Edwards he knew he wanted to be an artist since “second or third grade.” He graduated from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in 1963, where he learned printmaking, etching, painting and sculpture.
“I had a range of interests coming through,” he says.
Dowell continued his studies on a grant in California.
“I was trained on how to print lithographs,” he says.
Many of his works are at his home studio in North Philadelphia, like the lithograph titled “To Be of Love”.
He started teaching, and making his own artwork, spending 42 years at his alma mater of Temple University. He is now professor emeritus of printmaking at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture.
“Music has been the real driving force for me in my work, in terms of inspiration,” he says. “I started getting really interested in blues and then that led eventually to jazz.”
Dowell shows Edwards an etching he created inspired by jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp’s song “Hambone”. He combined his two passions to create innovative work.
“I did concerts for ten years using my artwork as the scores for the music,” he says. “Attempting to audially create what you see visually.”
“Now, this is a music piece, it was actually recorded,” he says of another work, an offset lithograph, shown to Edwards.
Music also inspired his start in photography.
“I sort of remember listening to a Quincy Jones piece, ‘Quintessence,’ and that was big city sound,” he says. “I’m not going to draw a city, I’ll photograph it.”
Edwards pointed out a photograph of Dowell’s called “The Long Road”.
“Oh, that’s a beautiful picture,” she says.
“That’s my cotton on New York,” says Dowell.
“This speaks to me, John,” says Edwards.
“I’ve always been interested in time and space,” he says.
More than 20 of Dowell’s works will be featured at the James Oliver Gallery in an exhibition called “I Got Through It.”
Dowell says the title is a reference to “life, becoming more of a human being, and learning – taking those experiences and making them positive.”
“I’ve gotten ideas, and I executed. They said I couldn’t do music from my artwork, I did it. They said I couldn’t do other things, I did it, I’ve done it,” he says. “I mean, it’s a good feeling.”
He says it’s his job as an artist “to bring you something so you can discover something about yourself”.
John E. Dowell, Jr.’s exhibition, “I Got Through It,” opens on Saturday, October 18 at the James Oliver Gallery with a reception from 6 – 9pm. It will be on view through November 15, 2025. Dowell is also giving an artist talk at the gallery on November 6 at 7pm.
For more information:
John E. Dowell, Jr. website
John E. Dowell, Jr. Instagram
James Oliver Gallery – “I Got Through It” – On View Oct. 18 – Nov. 15, 2025
James Oliver Gallery
723 Chestnut Street, 2nd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Copyright © 2025 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.
