Baby Bears Original Illustration Female Illustrator

This masterfully designed and rendered illustration is by under-the-radar female illustrator Colista Dowling. She had classical art training at the Art Students League, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, and it shows in the present work. She tells the story of two baby bears hiding from a group of hunters with shotguns on their shoulders.
We see bears watching the hunters from behind as the hunters pass into the distance. The bears' body language explains the dangerous narrative, and that tension is conveyed to the viewer.
Her composition depicts the two bears as two black shapes dominating the left quadrant of the picture. Done in pen and ink, the Dowling emphasizes the bears as solid masses, so they stand out against the foliage and forest. In this regard, the work is as abstract as it is representational. In pencil, centered at the bottom, the caption reads "Baby bears quite easy caught." Signed Colista Dowling, lower left.
Likely for "The Mascot Bears by Clara Cogswell Ingham, published by Metropolitan Press, 1933 and again The League of Western Writers, 1937
Provenance: Fred Taraba
Illustration work by this artist is very rare and seldom comes on the market

Born in Waverly, Kansas, in 1881, Dowling was classically trained at the Art Students League in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. When she moved to Oregon in 1890, she continued her art training at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and the Museum Art School in Portland. In 1914, she won the prize for best poster in the Rose Festival contest among fifty-one competitors. Her poster featured "a woman, symbolic of the festive spirit, standing on Portland and scattering roses over the Pacific Northwest."

“Dowling was an illustrator for The Pacific Monthly(which later became Sunset magazine), and she contributed to the caricature book As We See 'Em (1906), published under her maiden name, Murray. Her work can also be seen in the illustrations reproduced from her pen drawings for Ox Bows and Bare Feet (1952), by John Leach, and in several children's books and bookplates.”

“Dowling was a charter member of the short-lived Society of Oregon Artists in 1912. She then joined the Oregon Society of Artists, where she participated in exhibitions and won awards; she served as an officer for the Society in 1929 and 1940. She also belonged to the Attic Club, originally established by newspaper and commercial artists, and was president of the Women's Press Club. Her work was exhibited at both the Portland Art Museum and the Seattle Art Museum.”