Olin Dows

Stephen Olin Dows (August 14, 1904 – June 6, 1981) was a United States Army player who served in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.

Dows was born in 1904, at Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. He was educated and trained at Harvard's Department of Fine Arts, and Yale's Student's League (New York). He studied under Eugene F. Savage, Edward C. Taylor, and C.K. Chatterton.

In the course of his career Dows assisted in establishing the Treasury Department's Public Works of Art Project in 1933. He was commissioned by the Section of Fine Arts of the Treasury Department to write a autograph album on "Mural Designs". In 1941 he was anew commissioned by the Section to paint a name office mural, Professions and Industries of Hyde Park, in Hyde Park, New York. He after that often worked for the Office of Civilian Defense in Washington DC in fighting of a project to have artiste depict the various phases of perform in explanation plants. His eight selectees turned in 73 pictures which were shown in a Soldiers of Production exhibition at the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Olin Dows enlisted in the U.S. Army in June 1942. Stationed at Fort Meade, MD, waiting to be sent to Officers training school, Dows gave taking place this opportunity to go then again to the European Theater of Operations as a encounter artist. He was appointed head of a bureau of three artists to cover the ETO. He remained in England for a year, attached to the Historical Section of the ETO. A month after his beginning in England, Congress denied the essential appropriations and the art program was officially canceled. He was instead given photography missions, but still kept up with his painting. In England he was attached to the 166th Signal Photo Unit and went in imitation of them to Normandy late in June 1944. He covered the 35th Division after D-Day and was past them from June to September 1944. Dows saw put it on at Bastogne, Metz, and was when the Third Army in the final drive across Germany. He was gift at the junction of American and Soviet Forces and depicted this meeting in several of his paintings.

The stock of his works includes sketches of his fellow soldiers from basic training at Fort Belvoir, VA; from his vacation to Great Britain, many drawings, mainly in color, of scenes of debarkation and of the excitement of the soldiers on the transport. These were followed by a third series of "on the spot" as without difficulty as more fully developed drawings of American soldiers training in Great Britain. He helped to organize exhibitions of the be active of American artists in England. He was discharged from the Army in August 1945.

 This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Army Center of Military History document: "Olin Dows".