Doris Downes - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Doris Downes is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

artist and painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

of natural history

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

. She worked in design, and was Creative Director at Sotheby's

Sotheby's

Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...

, before becoming a full-time artist in 2001. She is married to the art critic

Art critic

An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...

, Robert Hughes

Robert Hughes (critic)

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...

, who credits his survival to her support after he had been in a serious car accident.

Life and work

Doris Downes was raised in Fredericksburg, Virginia

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Fredericksburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia located south of Washington, D.C., and north of Richmond. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 24,286...

and is the niece of artist Willard Downes (1908–2000). She became interested in flowers when hiking in woodlands near her home, whilst young; she was taught to draw by her father, who was an artist and encouraged her to see nature from an artistic viewpoint.

At college, she took a joint degree in arts and sciences. Her career started as an art director

Art director

The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....

in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

in publication design including Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

, Condé Nast Publications

Condé Nast Publications

Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...

and The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

, She was awarded a Silver award from SPD (The Society of Publication Designers) and an Ozzie Award for Design Excellence. She became Vice President and Creative Director of Sotheby's

Sotheby's

.

She had two children by her first marriage, and was a divorced single mother, when she met the Australian art critic

Art critic

An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...

, Robert Hughes

Robert Hughes (critic)

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...

in 1997. In 2001, at a low point in their relationship, he had a near-fatal car crash, was in a coma and then faced prosecution. She flew to Australia to be with him. He said, "Apart from being a talented painter, she saved my life, my emotional stability, such as it is," and, "I really wouldn't have got through it if it hadn't been for Doris. I know that's a sentimental thing to say—it's the sort of thing you're supposed to say—but it is true." That year, she decided to give up employment and spend all her time painting, specialising in flowers and birds. In 2003, she married Hughes in the town hall in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

.

Whilst in employment, she had shown her work in the Sotheby's

Sotheby's

gallery in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Her first solo exhibition after becoming a full-time artist was held in 2003 at the Sala Pares Gallery in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, in the Espacio Fama, showing watercolours of orchids, hibiscos, irises and tulips, painted from life. Olga Spiegel described them as "worked with a modern sensitivity that makes use of the expressive and tactile values of the paper"^[a] and said:

J. J. Navarro Arisa in El Mundo

El Mundo (Spain)

El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the...

considered her work to be proof that flower painting does not have to be an anachronism or merely decorative pastime, but can demonstrate a contemporary sensitivity,^[c] and that she exemplified a combination of scientific and aesthetic inquiry.^[d] Hughes wrote the catalogue for the show.

A series of her limited edition prints were published by Circulo del Arte, in Barcelona; these were completed in collaboration with the lithographer, Vincenz Aznar. In 2005, her work was included in the show, Art and the Garden, curated by Ronny Cohen at the Spanierman Gallery, New York. She is an artist in the book, American Floral: a Survey, (published by Eaton Fine Art); she has exhibited in the Summer Show at the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

; and is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists. Downes is currently represented by Gerald Peters Gallery, New York

New York

and Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...

.

Downes lives and works in New York with her husband. They share her five-bedroom farmhouse in Briarcliff Manor, New York

Briarcliff Manor, New York

Briarcliff Manor is a village in Westchester County in the state of New York. It is shared between the towns of Mount Pleasant and Ossining, and lies entirely within the ZIP code of 10510...

and his SoHo

SoHo

SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...

loft.

External links

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