THE ARTISTS
Austin Lowrey
Austin’s career moved between graphic design, teaching and fine art. After graduate study in painting and printmaking, he spent much of his professional life as a designer and educator, eventually joining the College of Design at North Carolina State University, where he helped shape its graphic design program and later retired as Professor Emeritus.
His later paintings and collages brought together many of the interests that had followed him throughout his life—abstraction and geometry, typography and language, literature, humor and the unexpected relationships between ordinary things.
Lida Lowrey
Lida’s creative life was equally varied. Trained in graphic design, she worked in design, museums and the arts before ultimately devoting herself fully to painting. Her paintings moved between abstraction and representation and were exhibited in the United States and Mexico.
Elizabeth Lowrey with the two uncles for whom Casa de los Tíos is named.
It became a place for Austin, Lida and their daughters, Elizabeth and Sheridan, to gather and experience the city together. Over time, the family’s creative life became part of the house itself.
Original paintings by Austin and Lida hang throughout the rooms alongside art and objects collected over many years. Lida’s paintings remain particularly visible in the dining room and fireplace room.
A detail at Casa de los Tíos, including Sheridan Lowrey’s shadow portrait of her parents.
A HOME FOR ART
Austin and Lida’s relationship with San Miguel eventually led them beyond Centro to Los Senderos, where they created a striking modern home and studios designed around the way they wanted to live and make art.
There, studios, living spaces, landscape and art became part of a single environment. Lida spent the later years of her life painting there, while Austin continued painting and making collages well into his nineties.
Their San Miguel story spans two very different homes: the historic family house on Canal and the contemporary artist’s home at Los Senderos. Different in architecture and purpose, both reflect something fundamental about their lives—the idea that art and the way we live need not be separate things.
A CREATIVE LEGACY
Lida died in 2020. Austin continued painting in San Miguel until late in his life and died in 2026 at the age of 93.
Their creative legacy remains in the paintings they made, the objects they collected, the homes they shaped and the family they raised.
At Casa de los Tíos, that legacy remains tangible—their paintings are still on the walls, Sheridan’s artistic eye continues to shape the house, and the family’s connection to San Miguel continues.