Evening at Laren, the Meadows

Born in Ravenna, Ohio, Howe began formal art training relatively late in life--not until his mid-thirties. Though interested in art since childhood, he first pursued a business career. After serving in the Civil War, he worked as a clerk for the Spring Dry Goods Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and later in St. Louis, Missouri for a wholesale dry goods company. Encouraged by his friends to pursue his artistic passions, he gave up the security of gainful employment and left for Europe, where he first enrolled in art class at the Düsseldorf Royal Academy in 1880. After a brief stay there, he went to Paris to study animal painting, where an important tradition of sculpting and painting anatomically correct animals had been fostered by Antoine-Louis Barye and Rosa Bonheur, and later by Howe’s teacher Félix- de Vuillefroy (1841-1916). In Paris, Howe found his calling, perfecting his art to the degree that by 1883 he had a work accepted at the Paris Salon. Once while traveling in Holland, Howe visited the small charming village of Laren, and began to paint the meadows and local cattle population.

Howe and his wife, Julia Clark, returned to America in 1893 and settled in Bronxville, New York. He summered in Old Lyme Connecticut where he became active with the Art Colony along with Henry Ward Ranger (also in the Union League Chicago Collection). The students there dubbed Howe affectionately "uncle." France would continue to honor him, proffering such accolades as Officier de L’Académie and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In America he was recognized in major exhibitions and named an Academician of the National Academy of Design.

Howe specialized in illustrating cows so well and so frequently that he was given the nickname "Howe Cow," which he considered amusing. He possessed the capability to render these Holsteins with a sensitivity that imparted human qualities to the animals, infusing them with a distinct personality. Howe’s paintings became highly fashionable at the turn of the twentieth century. The enthusiasm was in part sparked by the Dutch pastoral tradition promulgated by earlier artists such as Albert Cuyp and Paulus Potter, as well as the taste of American cattle breeders, who enthusiastically decorated their homes with the pleasant agrarian art.

Howe painted Evening at Laren during his visit to rural Holland in 1890. He selected the time of dusk for the backdrop, which creates a romantic atmosphere. Two of the largest animals stare directly at the viewer, confronting us as if waiting to converse. Bovine subjects fulfilled a nostalgic longing for the simpler life, in part a respite from the growing urbanization and industrialization of society.

Sally Metzler, Ph.D., Director of the Art Collection