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John Costigan
1888-1972
American
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Group of Figures
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Etching
Image size: 13
3/4 by 9 inches
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Signed lower right
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$600
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John Costigan was born of Irish-American
parents in Providence, Rhode Island, February 29, 1888. He was
a cousin of the noted American showman, George M. Cohan, whose
parents brought the young Costigan to New York City and were instrumental
in starting him on a career in the visual arts.
At the H. C. Miner Lithographing Company,
Costigan worked his way up from his entry job as a pressroom helper,
through various apprenticeships, to the position of sketch artist.
In the latter capacity he was an uncredited designer of posters
for the Ziegfeld Follies and for numerous silent films. Meanwhile,
he had supplemented his very meager formal studies in the fine
arts with a self-teaching discipline that led to his first professional
recognition in 1920 with the receipt of prizes for an oil painting
and watercolor in separate New York exhibitions.
John Costigan’s first national recognition came in 1922 with
his winning of the coveted Peterson Purchase prize of the Art
Institute of Chicago for an oil, “Sheep at the Brook.”
It marked the start of an unbroken winning streak that would gain
him at least one important prize per year for the remainder of
the decade. The nation’s art journalists and critics began
to take notice, making him the recurring subject of newspaper
features and magazine articles.Costigan had his first one-man
show of paintings at the Rehn Gallery on New York’s 5th Avenue
in November, 1924, to be followed less than three years later
by another at the Art Institute of Chicago.
In addition, Costigan’s work has been—and continues
to be—included, side-by-side with that of some of America’s
most high-profile artists, in museum and gallery exhibitions throughout
the country. His renown had peaked in the early 1930s, by which
time his work had been honored with nearly every major award then
being bestowed in the fine arts and had been acquired for the
permanent collections of several prestigious American museums,
including New York’s Metropolitan .