Bowman Art Advisory, art consultant in River North, Chicago
Russell Bowman Art Advisory

2440 North Lakeview, #10F
Chicago, IL 60614

By appointment
T 312 751-9500
rb@bowmanart.com

About Us

Founded in 2002, Russell Bowman Art Advisory provides complete collection development and management for private collectors, corporations and institutions. Specializing in Modern, contemporary and self-taught art, services include collection planning and acquisition; private sales; and coordination of appraisals, conservation, framing and installation.
 
Also functioning as a gallery from 2003 to 2015, one-person shows included David Smith, Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, Lucas Samaras, Elizabeth Murray, Joel Shapiro, Joel Sternfeld, Kiki Smith, Candida Hofer and others.  Exhibitions also focused on works on paper and artists associated with Chicago Imagism, especially Jim Nutt, Roger Brown and Ed Paschke.
 
With 25 years of museum administration and curatorial experience, Russell Bowman was the Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum from 1985 to 2002. A highlight of his tenure was the completion of the widely acclaimed addition to the museum designed by Santiago Calatrava. The 140,000 square-foot expansion was named "The Best Design of 2001" by Time magazine. The expansion was realized through the completion of a $100 million capital campaign and resulted in a first year attendance of some 450,000 visitors. In conjunction with the expansion, Bowman also directed the renovation of the museum's two existing buildings and the complete reinstallation of its collections. Several important collections acquired during Bowman's tenure were the Hall Collection of American Folk Art in 1989, the gift of the Flagg Collection of Renaissance and Haitian Art in 1991, the Landfall Press Archive in 1992, the gift/purchase of a major body of Georgia O'Keeffe works in 1997-1998, and the gift of the Specks Collection of German Expressionist Prints in 2000.
 
Bowman's exhibitions for the Milwaukee Art Museum included New Figuration in America (1982); Philip Pearlstein: A Retrospective (1983); Warhol/Beuys/Polke (1987); Word as Image: American Art, 1960-1990 (1990); and Jim Nutt (1994), all of which traveled nationally, and O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection which traveled to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in 2001-2002.  In the area of folk art, he organized American Folk Art: The Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. Collection, which traveled to nine museums in 1981-1984; Common Ground/Uncommon Vision: The Michael and Julie Hall Collection of American Folk Art, which toured in 1993-1995; and Driven to Create: The Anthony Petullo Collection of Self-Taught & Outsider Art, which toured in 1993-1995.
 
Bowman served as Chief Curator at the museum from 1980 through 1985 and was Director of Education at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago from 1978 to 1980. Bowman earned his B.A. at Randolph-Macon College, an M.A. from the University of Chicago with a major in Modern Art and pursued Ph.D. studies at the University of Chicago. He was a member of the Board of Governors, David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago and a member of the Board of Directors, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago from 2002 to 2009.

Russell Bowman Art Advisory
2440 North Lakeview, #10F
Chicago, IL 60614

Tel: 312.751.9500

Principal: Russell Bowman
rb@bowmanart.com

www.bowmanart.com


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