GREAT BAY/MARIGOT:---Dorothe Rohan Dow died on July 7, 2021, in the USA. She was 90.
“Dorothe passed peacefully after a year-long struggle to recover from a stroke in March of last year,” said her niece and artist Diedra Harris-Kelley.
Dorothe is survived by four of her five children, Pamela Dow Gibson, Doreen R. Dow Reid, James A. Dow, and Ernest A. Dow, Jr., five grandchildren, five of her seven sisters, and a host of nieces and nephews, said Harris-Kelley, who is co-director of the Romare Bearden Foundation in New York City.
Born in Staten Island, New York in 1930, Dorothe was the third of eight daughters of Marie and Frederic Rohan. Her family hailed from French Quarter, St. Martin.
Dorothe moved to the Caribbean homeland of her parents in the 1980s to assist her sister Nanette Rohan Bearden with opening the Nanette Bearden Fine Arts Gallery in Philipsburg, St. Martin. Dorothe became the director of the gallery, which encouraged and exhibited works of the island’s artists, said Harris-Kelley.
Dorothe was very much involved in organizing St. Martin’s 10-day “Festival of Culture Under the Sun” in 1987, along with Nanette, Romare Bearden, Josianne Fleming, Fabian Adekunle Badejo, and others.
Dorothe also worked as the Registrar and taught at the University of St. Martin in its formative years.
At St. Martin’s House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP), “Dorothe’s generosity and kindness helped with the ins and outs of private collection art images by Romare Bearden being able to appear on our book covers,” said Jacqueline A. Sample, HNP president and former president of Black Dimensions of Art, Inc., New York.
Back in New York, Dorothe Rohan Dow became one of the first directors of the Romare Bearden Foundation after Nanette passed away in 1996. She also served on the Board of Directors for several years.
Dorothe’s love for art and education was grounded in both practice and study. “She earned a Master of Science in Education at the University of the District of Columbia,” said Harris-Kelley.
During her years in Washington, DC, Dow was involved with the National Council of Negro Women and the 1977 National Women’s Conference, said Harris-Kelley.
Dorothe’s niece fondly remembers that her aunt “could often be spotted at art events in and around New York City, and in Washington, DC, particularly at the Foundation fundraisers and the annual Porter Colloquium at Howard University.”
“She was a staunch advocate for her brother-in-law Romare’s work, and her family’s efforts to preserve his and Nanette’s legacies,” said Harris-Kelley. Nanette founded the Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance Theater in New York City (Her sister Sheila Rohan, a founding member ballerina of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, is the artistic director of the Bearden dance theater). Romare Bearden was described in The New York Times in 1988, as, “one of America’s pre-eminent artists” and “the nation’s foremost collagist.”
Bearden was also an author and songwriter. His last body of artwork included what culture critic Badejo called his “Carnival Series” and “Obeah Series” — both painted significantly in St. Martin. Badejo was a close friend of Romare, Nanette, and Dorothe.
Dorothe embodied and continued much of the spirit, love and legacy that the Beardens shared with St. Martiners and the island’s artists during their vacations and working visits to the island in the mid-to-late 1980s. “Her warm brilliance, energy and strength will be remembered by all that encountered her,” said Harris-Kelley.
Farewell, Dorothe.
