Jim Dow

Joseph Bellows Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Jim Dow’s county courthouse photographs, taken between 1976-77 when Dow was one of 24 notable photographers commissioned for the Joseph E. Seagram’s County Court House Project in celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial.  The work produced for this immense project resulted in the exhibition Courthouse: A Photographic Document and a survey book of the same title, edited by Richard Pare. The final archive, which represents the sum of the participating photographers' work, comprises more than 11,000 negatives documenting more than 1,100 county courthouses and is held in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.

"One of the most original, intelligent, and useful architectural documentaries of recent years... exemplary of the social and artistic history of this country." - John Szarkowski, Director, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Dow’s contribution to the project involved photographing in the South Atlantic and South-Central States, documenting civic architecture through images of facades and interiors, as well as broader town views, placing the courthouse in context with the surrounding landscape.  His use of a large-format 8 x 10-inch camera perfectly balances documentary clarity with formal observation, resulting in richly detailed, beautifully crafted gelatin silver contact prints.

"The photographs... create a subtle and complex image of grassroots America... Nothing quite like this has been undertaken since the government-sponsored Farm Security Administration program of the 1930's." - Gene Thornton, Photography critic, The New York Times

Born in Boston in 1942, Dow earned a BFA in graphic design and an MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1965 and 1968, respectively.  Dow has taught photography, photographic histories, and contemporary art at Cooper Union, Harvard, Princeton, Vancouver School of Art & Design, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. His work is regarded for its depiction of vernacular roadside architecture and signage within the American landscape.

Dow’s work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States as well as Argentina, Canada, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. Various projects have been supported by the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, the Financial Times Magazine, the Joseph E. Seagram's Corporation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The New England Foundation for The Arts, the North Dakota Museum of Art, the Polaroid Corporation, the Target Corporation, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, as well as numerous private and public organizations and individuals.

Monographs on Dow's work include Marking the Land (2007), American Studies (2011), and Signs (2022).  His work is in numerous public collections, including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Amon Carter Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Center for Creative Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, The Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Nelson-Atkins Museum, among others.