Douglas Dowd is a professor of art and American culture studies with expertise in the practice, history and theory of illustration. He attended Kenyon College (BA in history, 1983) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (MFA in printmaking, 1989). His work as a writer, illustrator, animator and printmaker addresses the social landscape. Dowd’s fine books and prints are in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Fogg Museum at Harvard University.
Dowd launched his illustrated journal Spartan Holiday in 2011-12. The non-fiction serial is published two to three times a year. The narrative tracks Dowd’s travels to diverse locations, including Shanghai, China and the Utah desert.
Dowd is also active as a curator, essayist and critic in the realm of modern graphic culture, writing on topics in comics, animation and illustration. He writes the blog Graphic Tales and serves as an advisor to the Norman Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies in Stockbridge, Mass. In fall 2011, he served as a visiting critic at the Maryland Institute College of Art, working with students in the MFA in Illustration Practice program.