"How to Juggle Your Expenses"   Lot no. 913

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By Orson Byron Lowell (1871-1956)

23.50" x 21.00"
Watercolor and Ink on Paper
Signed Lower Right

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The illustration depicting an amusing narrative of a man juggling household commodities such as food, clothing, coal and ice, having dropped a bottle of milk at 9 cents, while an anxious family and a monster-in-law look on. Clearly a continuing plight, though the prices have changed. A large bird is depicted peeking through a doorway at the right.


He studied with the well-known anatomist, J. H. Vanderpoel, at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois. He moved from Chicago to New York in 1893. Known for the richness of his work in pen and ink, he drew, in 1898, fifty illustrations for The Choir Invisible. By 1907, he was employed at Life magazine, at that time a humor publication competing with Judge and Punch. He became known for his cartoons with a social message. Lowell was a contemporary of, and often discussed in relation to, the famous illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. In 1899, F. Marion Crawford published Saracinesca, a two-volume work with one hundred pen and ink drawings and reproductions of paintings by Lowell featuring images of Italian fountains, ancient buildings and bridges. Lowell illustrated magazines like Life, Judge, The American Girl through the 1940's. Before the decline of illustrated novels in the early 1920's, Lowell created illustrations for works little-known today, Love in Old Clothes, 1896; C.N. and A.M. Williamson's Lady Betty Across the Water, and the works of Charles de Kock. Orson Byron Lowell died in 1956. In 2002, Lowell's work was represented in Toast of the Town: Norman Rockwell and the Artists of New Rochelle, an exhibition of twenty-five artists associated with that New York town, held at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

 

Orson Byron Lowell was the son of the landscape painter, Milton H. Lowell, and his father encouraged his early efforts by expecting him to draw something every day. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago classes in 1887, remaining as a student and then as an instructor until 1893, when he moved to New York to enter the illustration field.

   He found immediate success there and worked for most of the top magazines, including The Century, Scribner’s, McClure’s, The Harper’s publications, Puck, Judge, Collier’s and the Curtis magazines in Philadelphia. He also illustrated many books. In 1907 he became a member of the Life staff and was a prolific contributor for many years, often featured with humorous centerfold double-spread pen and inks.

   Lowell maintained studios in New York and in New Rochelle, and was a member of the Society of Illustrators, the Players, the Dutch Treat Club, the Cliff Dwellers (of Chicago), and the New Rochelle Art Association.