Joe Downing wasn’t able “to hold onto the rope” until he could return to Bowling Green for another visit.

The world-renowned artist, Joseph Dudley Downing, died Dec. 29, 2007, at his country home in Menerbes, France, at the age of 82.

Downing’s older brother, Dero, said Monday that up until three days ago, “Dud” as he liked to call him, mentioned the rope metaphor that came from a trip to Bowling Green in 2000. He was here for a major exhibit of his works at the Kentucky Library and Museum.

“We went down to the day care … to pick up some grandchildren,” Dero Downing said. One of the day care workers was holding a rope with about 20 children in tow.

“He wanted to know what that was all about, and I told him she was having them hold on to the rope so they could all get into the building safely,” he said.

Yet it wasn’t meant to be for Joe Downing to hold on to the rope and return in May, when the Baker Museum is scheduled to open; it will showcase some of the more than 1,000 pieces of Downing’s artwork that Bowling Green resident Jerry Baker owns.

“At a very early age, he gave the signs and indications that he was unusually creative,” Dero Downing said. “In whatever surrounding he found himself, he had that unique capacity to find beauty in it.”

That happened in World War II when, as an 18-year-old artillery observer for the Army, Joe Downing fell in love with the French countryside and its people.

“He loved people and made friends easily,” Dero Downing said. “He would go with the family to milk their cows, if that was the timing of his being at some rural home in France.”

After his brief service in the Army, Joe Downing returned home to Horse Cave, giving Western Kentucky University a try.

“Then he decided he was going to be an optometrist,” Dero Downing said.

Joe Downing moved to Chicago, and while he was getting his schooling in optometry, he also attended the Chicago Art Institute.

“He said that was his introduction to some of the great art of the times,” Downing said.

So, set to join an optometry practice, Joe Downing decided to take a two-month European holiday first.

“He got over there and walked the banks of the Seine River and visited great art places … became further infatuated with (France),” Dero said, “and he wrote me and asked me to explain to our parents why he was going to remain there.”

Dero Downing said his parents, Aldridge Clifton and Katie Burton Goodman Downing, had birthed eight children, one of whom died as an infant.

“As loving parents would, they wanted him to be happy,” Dero said. “They expressed their regrets that he would not be where they would have the opportunity of his company. They understood the major currents of life sufficiently and, having reared seven children (who) were the beneficiaries of parents who were devoted, loving, caring, supportive … that’s the manner in which they accepted his decision to do that in 1950.”

Living in Paris, Joe Downing’s art didn’t immediately support him. For 10 or more years, he was a stenographer for a high-powered attorney who had offices in both Paris and Washington, D.C.

Baker, who didn’t meet Downing until 1992 while on a trip with Western faculty and alumni, said Joe also did work for a French porcelain company, putting his art on the pieces, which the company would then copy.

Anything could be a medium for Downing’s contemporary art – leather, linen, canvas, and particularly old wood. He also wrote fluently in French and had published books and poems.

“Had he not been successful and followed the path that he did in visual arts … he would have been equally successful as a writer,” Dero Downing said.

His works are displayed in museums in the United States, as well as in Luxembourg, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Paris and some other French cities.

Dero Downing said it wasn’t too long ago that the American ambassador to France visited with his brother and selected some paintings to hang in the American embassy in Paris.

Baker has a pair of large antique French doors that Downing used as a canvas. He also sculpted in metal and other mediums.

“It’s contemporary or modern art. I think it’s happy,” he said. “They are happy colors and the way he put the colors together … because he studied optometry and knew about light and reflection, that shows in his work; whether he did it consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know.”

Baker said Downing was always willing to try new mediums, and he expects to see some new things in a crate of work that is in transit to the museum now.

Baker said he really can’t pick a favorite of all the pieces he owns, which is why he was looking forward to Downing’s help in selecting the first artwork to be displayed in the 6,300-square-foot museum on the grounds of the Baker Arboretum.

“He was going to come two weeks before the opening and help select what was going to be displayed,” Baker said. “He was excited and really looking forward to it (as recently as a week ago).”

So Baker said he was shocked to learn of his friend’s death, despite the fact that his health had been in decline over the past few years. He had had heart bypass surgery and his mobility was impaired. Downing, who for years split his time between Paris and Menerbes, was now spending all his time in the countryside.

Western President Gary Ransdell and his wife, Julie, had planned to take a group of Western students and alumni to visit Downing in the summer.

“I’m hardly a qualified art expert,” Ransdell said. “All I know is, based on a video that WKYU-TV produced a couple of years ago … art experts are quoted about the worldwide … respect his works have gained.

“He clearly is a source of great pride for our region of Kentucky.”

Ransdell said the entire Downing family – Dero was a former WKU president – has contributed to Western.

“Clearly the Baker Museum is going to be the permanent legacy for Joe Downing that people all across our community will enjoy for generations,” Ransdell said.

The arboretum and museum is in a trust, which will go to Western upon Baker’s death.

As did Dero Downing, Baker said it was Joe Downing’s personality that drew people to him.

“He was such a nice person, there was just no reason not to be a friend,” Baker said. “He was not pretentious. He was very down to earth.”

Dero said both he and his brother had been looking forward to the visit in May.

“But it wasn’t meant to be,” he said. “We are here in the day only through the grace of God.”

Other survivors include his brother, George William Downing of Bowling Green, his sister, Sara Downing Taylor and her husband, Arnold Taylor, both of Bowling Green, Dero’s wife, Harriet; and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins.

Joe Downing’s body will be cremated and his ashes spread in two places: at the foot of the Luberon Mountains in France, as well as in Horse Cave. A memorial service will be planned at a later date.