The Denver Art Museum’s textile art and fashion department highlights a rarely exhibited medium in “Drawn to Glamour: Fashion Illustrations by Jim Howard” through August 5. If the name rings a bell, Howard drew magazine and newspaper advertisements for most of the major U.S. department stores prior to fashion photography’s takeover. His prolific, four-decade career began in his native Texas at Goodfriends in Austin, where he funded his fine art studies at the state university, and Neiman Marcus in Dallas. He soon relocated to New York for accounts like Saks Fifth Avenue, Bonwit Teller and I. Magnin, as well as Bullock’s in Los Angeles. “Most people are surprised to see these works in a museum and don’t even know they exist,” says Florence Müller, the museum’s Avenir Foundation curator who exhibits about a quarter of the 400 works Howard donated to her department’s permanent collection. (He retired in Denver.) “They’re confused and think he’s a fashion designer, but designers’ sketches are the beginning of the story, while fashion illustrations are the end.” Howard is nearly as surprised as his viewers, who gathered around the dapper octogenarian with praises, memories and questions during a recent visit to the gallery. Though a former colleague

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