20 North Gallery to host Cousino art retrospective
Written by John Dorsey | | news@toledofreepress.com
In December of last year, Toledo’s arts community suffered a great loss with the death of nationally renowned local artist/educator Joe Ann Cousino.
Her friends and family are coming together to celebrate her life’s work with the career retrospective “A Tribute to Joe Ann Cousino.” The exhibition, which spans the course of the artist’s 60-year career, is set to open at the 20 North Gallery on Aug. 1.
There will be a reception for the exhibit featuring remarks by Gallery Director Peggy Grant and by the artist’s son and assistant, Richard Cousino, from 2 to 5 p.m. on Aug. 3.
“This exhibit has been in the planning stages for well over six months, basically since right after Joe Ann passed away. I had to go through all of her work, all of her papers. For her memorial I helped put together a collage slideshow which took somewhere around 100 hours to complete,” Richard said. “With this show, in terms of selection of the work, the main goal really was to show the scope of her talents. This exhibit will feature a number of pieces which have never before been viewed by the public.”
Cousino, who served as the first female president of the Toledo Federation of Art Societies, started making artwork as a child attracting the attention of world-renowned sculptor Paul Manship at the age of 8.
“Manship invited Joe Ann to spend her summer at his Vermont studio, but my grandparents wouldn’t let her go, but she continued to make work, and was accepted into the Area Show here at the age of 16, which I think is such a remarkable achievement. She had a take a lot of flak throughout her career, the arts scene when she was coming up was a man’s world. Art was never a hobby to her, she was a professional artist. She also played very important role in bringing other artists to Toledo,” Cousino said.
In addition to her work with TFSA, Cousino also co-founded the Toledo Potters Guild with Edith Franklin and exhibited her work in a number of shows, including her first solo show at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1959. Cousino is the creator of the “Woman with the Birds” sculpture at the Toledo Botanical Garden.
“A Tribute to Joe Ann Cousino” will run through Sept. 7.
For more information, contact Grant at (419) 241-2400.
