Michael Rowe has exhibited in group and solo shows in the UK,
Europe, America, Australia and the Far East, and has travelled
extensively to lecture and participate in international symposia and
conferences. Major exhibitions include Michael Rowe: Objects in Metal, Crafts Council Gallery, London, 1978; Michael Rowe: Retrospective, Museem het Princessehof, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 1988; Conditions for Ornament, Contemporary Applied Arts, London, 1988; and The Eloquent Vessel: Bunck/Foster/Rowe,
Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Koln, Germany. His work may be seen in
public collections in the UK, Europe, Australia and Japan including
major collections such as the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh,
Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, and the National Museum of Modern
Art, Tokyo. Major commissions undertaken include a silver pomander for
the Crafts Council, 1972; a silver pomander for Liberty and Co, 1975; a
pair of silver candelabra for The Silver Trust 1994; a silver vase for
the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, 1997 and a silver cup for
Sheffield Assay Office, 2002.
Rowe was a visiting lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts, London
from 1976–1982 and at Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education from
1973 to 1984. He has been a member of staff at the Royal College of Art
since 1984 and is now a Senior Tutor. In 1987 he was made a Fellow.
Research into the colouring and patination of metals carried out at
Camberwell College of Art with Richard Hughes from 1979 to 1982 led to
the publication of the book The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals
in 1982 by the Crafts Council. Re-issued in 1991 by Thames and Hudson,
London, and the Whitney Library of Design, Watson Guptil, New York,
this book is recognised as the standard work on the subject. Michael
Rowe is a Freeman of the Goldsmiths' Company and a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Arts. In 1988 he was winner of the Sotheby's decorative Arts
Award and in 1993 was awarded a Japan Foundation Artists Fellowship. In 1998, he was a prizewinner in the European Prize for Contemporary Art and Design-led Crafts organised by the World Crafts Council, and in 2002, he was recipient of the Golden Ring of Honour from the Association of German Goldsmiths, the Gesellschaft fur Goldschmidekunst. A major retrospective of his work Michael Rowe: poetics and geometry
was held at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2003. He was
awarded an honorary doctorate by Buckinghamshire New University in
2004, and an honorary doctorate by Hasselt University, Belgium, in
2010. A monograph on his work, Michael Rowe, by Martina Margetts and Richard Hill, was published by Lund Humphries in 2003.