permanent collection

Jim Dow

Jim Dow's interest in photography began at the Rhode Island School of Design where he earned an undergraduate degree in graphic design. Born in 1942, he received National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1972, 1979 and 1990 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975. In 1981, the North Dakota Museum of Art received a large grant from Target Stores to allow Dow to photograph environmental folk art throughout North Dakota. He spent three months in the state completing that commission which was exhibited at the North Dakota Museum of Art. A sports fan, Dow has photographed numerous places where people watch games throughout the United States, Great Britain and Argentina. "Sport," he says, "is as close to religion as anything we’ve got."  Dow was an official photographer at the Los Angeles Olympics and has photographed, by commission, all of the major league baseball stadiums in the country. He came back to Grand Forks and Minot during the summer of 1998 while photographing the ballparks in the Northern and Prairie Leagues. Since that trip he has returned to North Dakota a number of times to continue to photograph throughout the region with an eye towards publishing a book that will pay homage to the unique atmosphere and sensibility of the upper Great Plains. He is working on a concurrent project photographing the great private social clubs of New York City. His work is collected by many institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the George Eastman House and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.