Swope Art Museum
Terre Haute, IN
812-238-1676
The Graphic Work of John Edward Costigan (1888-1972)
The Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute announces a major exhibition of prints by John Edward Costigan, one of America's foremost printmakers. "The Graphic Work of John Edward Costigan (1888-1972)" is on view September 29 through November 5, 2000.
Most of Costigan's prints depict life on the small farm in Orangeburg, New York where he and his wife settled in 1920 and raised their five children and several grandchildren. Using family members and barnyard animals as his only models, Costigan captured the beauty and simplicity of life in the idyllic countryside of upstate New York.
Left to right: John E. Costigan (Prividence Rhode Island 1888 - Nyack, New York 1972), Noon Day Rest, detail, oil, c. 1946, 40 x 45 inches, Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, Indiana, Photography by Studio of Fine Art Photography; John E. Costigan (Prividence Rhode Island 1888 - Nyack, New York 1972), Going Home, detail, etching, 1940, Associated American Artists, Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, Indiana, Photography by Studio of Fine Art Photography; John E. Costigan (Prividence Rhode Island 1888 - Nyack, New York 1972), Workers of the Soil, detail, etching, c. 1932, Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, Indiana, Swope #1999.20, Gift of Lee Howard, Photography by Studio of Fine Art Photography; John E. Costigan (Prividence Rhode Island 1888 - Nyack, New York 1972), Mother and Child, detail, etching, c. 1922, 10 x 12 inches, Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, Indiana, Swope #1999.08, Gift of Lee Howard, Photography by Studio of Fine Art Photography; John E. Costigan (Prividence Rhode Island 1888 - Nyack, New York 1972), Cutting Fodder, detail, etching, 1937, 8 x 12 inches, Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, Indiana, Swope #1999.16, Gift of Lee Howard, Photography by Studio of Fine Art Photography
Costigan was a largely self-taught artist. He moved from Providence, Rhode Island to New York City as an orphaned teenager in 1904 to work for a commercial poster company. It was here that he learned the rudiments of drawing and painting, skills he furthered with informal study at New York's Kit Kat Club, a popular artists' hangout. Costigan achieved national fame as a painter and printmaker in the1920s and 30s. He won numerous prestigious awards and, despite his lack of formal artistic training, was elected a full member of the National Academy of Design. In 1937 the Smithsonian Institution held a one-person exhibition of his graphic works. Famed American printmaker John Taylor Arms praised Costigan as "a brilliant etcher, particularly noted for his interpretation of life on the American farmstead."
Today prints by Costigan can be found in private and public collections around the nation, including the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, which owns twenty-two. The Swope exhibition is the largest devoted to Costigan's work since the late 1960s. Many of the forty-five prints in the exhibition are from the Swope's own extensive holdings of Costigan's works. Other are being lent by private collectors from around the country.
The Swope exhibition coincides with the publication of an illustrated directory of Costigan's prints compiled by his son Daniel M. Costigan. Copies of the book will available at the museum after October 1. Admission to the Costigan exhibition is $3.00 (museum members free). Admission to the permanent collection is always free
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rev 9/15/00
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