Born and raised in Mississippi, Byron Burford was drawn to the University of Iowa through an interest in one of its professors: Iowa’s Regionalism artist, Grant Wood. The American Gothic painter mentored Burford as an undergraduate, helping him hone his talents and lifelong love of circuses and carnivals into a distinctive oeuvre.
Burford earned his B.A. from UI in 1942; the same year, Wood died of pancreatic cancer at just 51 years old. After enlisting and serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII, Burford returned to Iowa City to finish his M.F.A.
A teaching career in the UI School of Art and Art History would keep him here for 38 years, along with his wife of 65 years Kathleen Kane, herself a notable artist. They befriended Kurt Vonnegut (who called Burford “the best guy in Iowa City“) and other luminaries of the Iowa City cultural scene.
When not teaching, Burford traveled around the country playing the drums in circus bands. This produced a definitive collection of circus-themed works in a variety of styles, from painting to photo collage to lithograph. More serious subjects, reflecting darker sides of the human condition, were influenced by soldiers and the Vietnam War.
Like Grant Wood, Burford demonstrated an eclectic taste and competence with a variety of media, including oil, prints and engravings. His deft eye for vibrant colors and figurative subject matter are represented in all; even his more muted monochromatic works are still dynamic.
“Mr. Burford surprises us by displaying a very lively imagination, some obsessive themes and a real flair for dramatizing his ideas,” the New York Times’ Hilton Kramer wrote of Burford’s first one-person show in New York in 1966. “Motifs drawn from carnival and circus life, from popular culture and nostalgic glimpses of forgotten wars, are transformed into graphic symbols of a notable complexity.”
Kathy Rash from The Art Mission in Iowa City holds a piece by Byron Burford. — Kellan Doolittle/Little Village 
Kathy Rash from The Art Mission in Iowa City flips through a copy of and the Lord knows what (1988) by Byron Burford, published by Chicago Books and the University of Iowa Center for the Book. — Kellan Doolittle/Little Village 
Kathy Rash from The Art Mission in Iowa City flips through a copy of and the Lord knows what (1988) by Byron Burford, published by Chicago Books and the University of Iowa Center for the Book. — Kellan Doolittle/Little Village 
Kathy Rash from The Art Mission in Iowa City flips through a copy of and the Lord knows what (1988) by Byron Burford, published by Chicago Books and the University of Iowa Center for the Book. — Kellan Doolittle/Little Village 
Kathy Rash from The Art Mission in Iowa City flips through a promotional brochure for Burford’s stage show Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet of Horrors. © Byron Burford — Kellan Doolittle/Little Village 
Kathy Rash from The Art Mission in Iowa City flips through a promotional brochure for Burford’s stage show Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet of Horrors. © Byron Burford — Kellan Doolittle / Little Village 
Kathy Rash from The Art Mission in Iowa City flips through a promotional brochure for Burford’s stage show Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet of Horrors. © Byron Burford — Kellan Doolittle/Little Village 
Kathy Rash from The Art Mission in Iowa City shows off a large Byron Burford sketch of a circus tiger. — Kellan Doolittle/Little Village
Burford died at the age of 90 in 2011, just two years after his wife. Major museums and private collections contain Burford works, including UI’s own Stanley Museum of Art, which has at least 10 paintings depicting musicians, dancers, circus animals, Uncle Sams on stilts, feathered and sequined showgirls, and the octopus ride at an amusement park. The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art presented a popular exhibition three years ago titled “Byron Burford: Ringmaster.”
Kathy Rash of Iowa City’s Art Mission is currently overseeing the selling of his works. This includes incredible artifacts from Burford’s side hustle selling Houdini images, and staging a haunted house-themed show.
This article is from Little Village’s December 2025 Peak Iowa issue, a collection of stories drawn from Hawkeye State history, culture and legend. Browse dozens of Peak Iowa tales here.
