Sister Adele Rowland O.P.

Sister M. Adele Rowland, O.P.

A Dominican Sister of San Rafael for 62 years, died peacefully at Our Lady of Lourdes Convent in San Rafael on May 7. She was 99 years old.

The daughter of Colonel Arthur Eugene and Helen Kelly Rowland, Eugenia grew up on a series of Army posts, with seven transcontinental moves by the time she was in eighth grade. She earned two degrees from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1940 to 1950, Eugenia was an English professor at California State University, Fresno.

She had considered a vocation to religious life from a young age, but her plans to enter the convent directly after college were interrupted by World War II. When both of her brothers returned safely from service in the U.S. Army Air Corps, she felt free to begin her life as a Dominican Sister in San Rafael.

Sister Adele was an enthusiastic and beloved professor at Dominican College, teaching English, humanities, and photography. She had held a special love of photography since childhood, but had never had any formal training. When she voiced her self-doubts to the College's publicity photographer, Ansel Adams, he reassured her by reminding her that, of course, she couldn't have studied photography; there were no classes to take when he and she were first interested in taking pictures.

Sister Adele's photographic art predates digital cameras and computer graphics. After photographing her original images in color throughout the world, she created photomontages she called counterpoint images. Her goal was to express, in multiple layers, her own perceptions of the variety and beauty, humor and irony of life, and still leave room for the viewer to personally interpret the symbolism of the piece.

By 1975 Sister Adele's photomontages were winning national and international awards, and she was appointed Dominican College (now Dominican University of California) Artist-in-Residence. Her work has been seen in over a hundred group exhibitions, while her solo shows have been held in Florence and Milan, Italy; in Beijing and Nanking, China; in Singapore, and throughout the United States.

In 1998 Sister Adele received the Fra Angelico Award for Lifetime Excellence in Art from the Dominican Institute for the Arts. Important public collections where Sister Adele's art are held: Bibliothèque nationale de France; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manila, Philippines; Honolulu Academy of Art, Hawaii; China International Cultural Center in Beijing, and Nanking Museum, China; and in California, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Grunwald Center for the Arts, University of California, Los Angeles. They are also held in over 200 important corporate collections.

On the occasion of her 60th jubilee in 2012, Sister Adele said, "I have no doubt that my long time in the ministry of art is strictly the Lord's idea, for how otherwise could it have succeeded? It is a ministry for which I am most appreciative, for practicing it has brought me closer to God. Most important of all, I am exceedingly grateful for the mystery of the wondrous gift of my Dominican vocation."

Sister Adele's parents and brother, Gerald Rowland, predeceased her; she is survived by her brother, David Rowland, her nieces Linda Kelly, Sharon Lewis, Debbie Brannan and Rebecca Riva, her nephews Bruce, Bret and Brian Rowland, grandnieces and grandnephews, and by her Dominican sisters.

The funeral Mass will take place on Thursday, May 14 at 10:00 a.m. at the Dominican Sisters Center, 1520 Grand Avenue in San Rafael. Following Mass Sister Adele will be buried at St. Dominic Cemetery in Benicia.

Memorial gifts in honor of Sister Adele may be sent to the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, Development Office, 1520 Grand Avenue, San Rafael CA 94901.