Biography
Jac T. Bowen (1913–2000) was one of Missouri’s most versatile and imaginative artists, moving fluidly between painting, sculpture, industrial design, and large-scale public commissions. Born and trained in Kansas City, Bowen studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute, absorbing Benton’s sweeping forms, muscular figures, and rhythmic sense of motion. Bowen carried these lessons into his own work, but with a distinctive twist: he placed machinery, engineering, and modern labor at the center of his compositions.
Bowen’s career began in the New Deal era, where he earned a coveted commission from the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. His 1942 mural for the Higginsville, Missouri Post Office, “Industrial Activity in the City,” stands out as one of the most unusual Missouri murals of the period. Rather than focusing on agriculture or pioneer history, Bowen celebrated the power of industry itself—placing a massive generator at the center of the composition, surrounded by workers and machinery in motion. Bowen explained his philosophy simply: “Work made the town—work is building the town—and work will be the theme of their future.”
The mural was removed from the Higginsville Post Office in 2004 and is now preserved at the National Archives, Kansas City, ensuring its long-term survival.
Beyond the New Deal
After the 1940s, Bowen became a prolific public artist in the Kansas City region. His output ranged from brass relief sculpture—including the monumental “Sheaves of Wheat” (formerly at the Kansas City Board of Trade and now at Powell Gardens)—to steel and copper monuments such as “Birds in Flight,” which still greets visitors at the Wornall Homestead neighborhood entrance.
Bowen also became regionally famous for his fiberglass animal sculptures, created for shopping centers and public plazas. His most ambitious project was the 30-animal playground built for The Landing Shopping Center in 1960. The entire menagerie—elephants, camels, lions, turtles, kangaroos, and more—was beloved by Kansas City children. In 1970, the animals were loaded onto trucks to be donated to the Kansas City Zoo. They never arrived. Their disappearance remains one of Kansas City’s most enduring public-art mysteries.
Bowen’s work also includes the Salvatore Grisafe Memorial (1966) in Parkville, Missouri, and the fiberglass reconstruction of the Plaza Easter Bunnies in 1971, which remain a seasonal tradition at the Country Club Plaza.
Missouri Works
- “The Mail Coach” — Marshall, Missouri (1938–39), Section of Fine Arts
- “Industrial Activity in the City” — Higginsville, Missouri (1942), Section of Fine Arts
These works reflect Bowen’s unique approach to Regionalism—one that embraced the energy of modern industry alongside the human labor that powered it.
New Deal Program Involvement
Bowen’s participation in the Section of Fine Arts places him among the select group of Missouri artists who received federal mural commissions during the Great Depression. His work stands apart for its bold celebration of machinery, engineering, and the modern city—an industrial counterpoint to the agricultural themes common in Missouri’s New Deal art.