San Miguel legend Austin Lowrey still creating new art into his 90’s

Austin Lowrey is a prolific artist who has created both a stunning body of work and a unique dream home on the outskirts of San Miguel de Allende. The house is not only a beautiful fusion of art and design but also a homage to his late wife, artist Lida Lowrey.

Lowrey’s body of work encompasses vibrantly colorful paintings and collages that lift the spirits of the viewer. Many incorporate lyrics, poetry, puns and elements of graphic design. They offer a provocative dose of irony or punchy humor, often with a Southern U.S. lilt. Some are abstractions featuring tactile explorations with paint, while others are explosions of geometry and still others are illustrative. At age 91, Lowrey paints for approximately four hours per day.

Building a dream home in Mexico

How did this couple, originally from Alabama and Tennessee, whose careers led them over the decades to various universities and artistic communities in the U.S. South, and who ultimately established themselves in Los Angeles, suddenly decide to move to Mexico?

“Lida had a friend who talked incessantly about a special Mexican town,” explains Lowrey. “We decided we had to see San Miguel de Allende. We came down in 2010 and immediately fell in love with the people, the architecture, the quality of the art scene and the sophistication of the design ethos here that we saw epitomized at YAM Gallery and Skot Foreman Fine Art. Within days, we bought a colonial-era house on Canal Street.”

“We named the house Casa de los Tíos in honor of the inheritance we had each received from beloved uncles, which enabled us to buy it.” The couple worked with Barboza Arquitectos to create a multiple-story, light-filled interior.

Then they set about building their dream home in the countryside on the outskirts of San Miguel. Working with another Mexican architect, Luis Sánchez Renero, they designed a truly spectacular house that would provide each of them with a gorgeous studio. The house consists of three glass pavilions connected by glass corridors. The stunning home has been featured in various international magazines, from Italy to Brazil.

“My parents were ahead of their time in the way they moved between the disciplines of art and design. They both had a profound, intuitive curiosity about the connections, overlap and points of mutual inspiration in the art and design worlds,” noted their daughter, artist Sheridan Lowrey, who has added numerous dramatic, intriguing art installations to the landscape surrounding the home. She uses locally-made tiles and displays Mexican vernacular pottery.

Making artistic connections in San Miguel de Allende

“I love L.A. and miss many things about the South — the waterfalls and mountains, the places I danced in my youth — but I have found fresh inspiration and beauty here in Mexico,” noted Lowrey. 

In San Miguel, the Lowreys discovered a thriving community of art- and design-oriented expats and found that noted L.A. artists such as Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell had homes here. San Miguel’s art scene has certainly evolved over the years. For decades, art students have come to study at the Instituto Allende and Bellas Artes. Now those storied institutions are somewhat less central to the scene, with many established artists working out of Fabrica la Aurora and creating their own studio spaces throughout the city and its environs.

Pilgrimages to San Miguel by Lowrey’s former art and design students

Lowrey received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Auburn University in graphic design and fine art. He was a career professor of graphic design at the University of Georgia, Indiana State University and last and longest at North Carolina State School of Design.

In each place Austin and Lida lived, they established architecturally interesting live-work spaces for themselves. They did this in the university towns of Raleigh, North Carolina; Athens, Georgia; and Terre Haute, Indiana. In Terre Haute, for example, Lida bought an old church in a blue-collar neighborhood and turned it into a gallery and antiques store named Revival.

Eventually, they moved to San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, where they became well-established in the local artist community. They had conjoined 3,000-square-foot spaces; Austin’s space was decorated with early American art pottery, flea market objects and outsider art and design, while Lida’s was a white cube gallery.

Lowrey’s students keep in touch with him, and a number have journeyed to San Miguel to visit him, including, most recently, the previous design director at Appalachian State University.

Lowrey even taught his daughter Sheridan at North Carolina State University. “My parents have always been my best friends,” she said, “because we share a love for art and design.”