The Smithsonian Resident Associate Program's Art Collectors Program

the artists

luis cruz azaceta		Luis Cruz Azaceta, (b. 1942, Havana, Cuba) came to the United States in 1960, and studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has taught at the University of California, Louisiana State University, and Cooper Union, New York.
will barnet		Born in 1911 in Beverly, Massachusetts, Mr. Barnet has had a long and distinguished career as a painter, printmaker, and draftsman, and has earned the reputation of being a master at balancing the formal characteristics of abstraction with the familiar representation of the human figure. Above all, he is a humanist, infusing his work with a poetic and serene sense of people, animals, and places.
jennifer bartlett		Jennifer Bartlett (b. 1941, Long Beach, California) graduated from Mills College in Oakland, California, and earned her BFA and MFA from Yale University. Since her first one-person exhibit in New York in 1974, she has had numerous one-person shows and has participated in major exhibitions at institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Art; the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; the Brooklyn Museum of Art; and the Milwaukee Museum.
carolyn brady		For over 25 years, the Oklahoma-born (1937-2005) Ms. Brady, exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Japan. Her works are included in significant public and private collections, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri; the J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky; and the Tampa Museum of Art, Florida.
alexander calder		Alexander Calder (Philadelphia, 1898- 1976) was an American sculptor known as the originator of mobiles. While his early artwork was inspired by the circus, Calder began creating movable sculptures inspired by the abstract works of his friends Miro and Mondrian in the 1930s. After 1950, Calder became more focused on creating non-moving sculptures caned "stabiles."
elizabeth catlett		Elizabeth Catlett (b. 1919, Washington, D.C.) graduated from Howard University (B.A.), where she studied under artists James Porter, Louise Mailou Jones, and Jacob Lawrence. She also attended the State University of Iowa (M.F.A.), the Art Students League of New York, and the Chicago Art Institute.
dale chihuly		Dale Chihuly (b.1941, Tacoma, Washington) is credited with breathing life into the now-flourishing world of blown glass. He studied at the University of Wisconsin with Harvey Littleton, and at the Venini Glass Factory in Venice, Italy (the first American to be granted such access). In 1971, he co-founded the Pilchuck Glass Center in Stanwood, Washington, which is now the creative center of the continually expanding art-glass universe.
christo		Born in Bulgaria on June 13, 1935, he was christened Christo Vladimirov Javacheff. As a teenager, Christo’s parents encouraged him to enroll in the Sofia Fine Arts Academy which offered a broad range of fine art curriculum including: painting, sculpture, architecture, and stage design.
gene davis		Gene Davis (Washington, D.C., 1920--1985) was a self-taught artist and founding member of the Washington Color School. He taught at the Corcoran School of Art and American University and was an artist-in-residence at Skidmore College. He had over 100 one-man shows and while he worked in many styles and media, including collage and photography, his multi-color vertical stripe paintings continue to be the most sought after.
willem de kooning		Willem de Kooning, (Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 1904-1997) is regarded as one of the world's leading abstract expressionist artists. He moved to the United States in 1926 where he gained critical acclaim in the late 1940s for his abstract paintings. In 1953 he launched a groundbreaking series titled "Woman" that inspired representation of the human figure in new and controversial ways.
willem de looper		Willem de Looper (b. 1932, The Hague, Netherlands,) is a painter and curator who studied art at American University. An acclaimed Washington painter and member of the Washington Colorist School, his work is in permanent collections at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Philips Collection, the National Gallery of Art and in many private collections.
tomie depaola		Tomie dePaola, (b. 1934, Meriden, Connecticut) is a beloved illustrator of children's books. His works include Tomie dePaola's Mother Goose, Jingle, The Christmas Clown, and The Legend of the Poinsettia. DePaola received fine arts degrees from Pratt Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts. He is also a winner of the prestigious Caldecott Book Award.
eric fischl		Born in New York City in 1948, Eric Fischl grew up in the suburbs of Long Island. He began his art education in Phoenix, Arizona where his parents had moved in 1967. First at Phoenix Junior College, then a year at Arizona State University, and finally getting his BFA in 1972 at the recently opened California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.
sam gilliam		Sam Gilliam (b. Tupelo, Mississippi, 1933) is considered one of the fore-most abstract artists in the United States. He studied at the University of Louisville and has taught at the Corcoran School of Art, the Maryland Institute College of Art and Carnegie Mellon University.
nancy graves		Nancy Graves (b. 1940-1995, Pittsfield, Massachusetts) was a painter, printmaker, stage designer, sculptor, and filmmaker. She received her B.A. from Vassar College and her B.FA. and M.F.A. from the School of Art and Architecture at Yale.
philip guston		Philip Guston (1913 – 1980, Montreal), was a leading painter of the post-World War era know for his Abstract Expressionist works that often conveyed frank social commentary. Guston was essential a self-taught artist, studying only briefly at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. Between 1932 and 1940 he painted murals for the WPA.
richard haas		Richard Haas (b. 1936, Spring Green, Wisconsin) is one of the world’s leading architectural muralists, and is best known for his trompe l’oeil paintings. He has created numerous “make-believe” buildings, including an entire streetscape at Manhattan’s South Street Seaport, 13 murals of New York publishing houses for the New York Public Library, Smithsonian Institution exteriors on an interior wall, and an entire exterior façade of the Boston Architectural Center.
robert indiana		Robert Indiana (b. New Castle, Indiana, 1928) is a painter, printmaker and sculptor, known as a major contributor to the Pop Art movement in the United States. Originally born Robert Clark, Indiana later took the name of his home state. He studied at the Herron School of Art and Edinburgh College of Art. Indiana is best known for his 1960s DIE and LOVE art series.
wolf kahn		Born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1927, Wolf Kahn immigrated to the US in 1940 where he studied under abstract expressionist Hans Hoffman, becoming Hoffman’s studio assistant. He completed his baccalaureate degree at the University of Chicago in one year. He has received numerous scholarships and fellowships and has painted landscapes in diverse locales all over the world.
jacob kainen		Jacob Kainen (Waterbury, Connecticut 1909-2001) studied at the Art Student's League and graduated from the Pratt Institute. Associating with fellow New York school artists Stuart Davis, William de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, Kainen worked with a wide range of subjects using various styles and media.
robert kushner		Born in 1949 in Pasadena, California, Robert Kushner received a BA from the University of California. It was not until 1987, after 17 years of a full and varied art practice, that Kushner began to paint with oil on stretched canvas. He approaches painting with the same delight, adventurousness and humor that have been characteristic of his work from the beginning.
jacob lawrence		Jacob Lawrence (b. Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1917) is a painter, renowned for his themes focusing on the history, daily life and struggles of African Americans. Lawrence studied at the Harlem Art Workshop, Pratt Institute, and earned an honorary fine arts degree from the University of the District of Columbia.
sol lewitt		Born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1928, Sol LeWitt has a distinguished 40-year career as a leading practitioner of Conceptual art. His popularity is derived from his colorful floor-to-ceiling wall paintings of trapezoids, step-shapes, cubes, stars, and rainbows. His portfolio also includes wall drawings, sculptures, photographic series, limited-edition prints and drawings.
carlo mejia		Carlo Mejia (b. San Salvador, El Salvador, 1945) is a surrealist painter who draws on stories passed down to him by his grandparents when he was growing up in San Salvador. Mejia often uses non-traditional media to symbolize the myths and stories of his Mayan heritage.
dan namingha		Dan Namingha (b. 1950, Pocacca, Arizona) was raised in a family of noted potters and educated in traditional Tewa-Hopi traditions. He studied at the University of Kansas, the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, and the American Academy of Art in Chicago.
leroy neiman		Known for his bright, colorful paintings and screen prints, LeRoy Neiman (b.1921, St. Paul, Minnesota) is probably one of the most popular painters and printmakers in America. Neiman explores contemporary leisure, all the pastimes and places people enjoy, and the world of sports and entertainment.His style explodes with the dramatic intensity of Abstract Expressionist brush strokes.
lowell nesbitt		Lowell Nesbitt (1933-1993, Baltimore) attended the Tyler School of Fine Arts and Royal College of Art in England, and taught at Towson State University, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the University of Miami. A painter and a sculptor, he received many awards, including from the Baltimore Museum of Art and the National Collection of Fine Arts.
vera neumann		Vera Neumann (Stamford, Connecticut, 1910-1993) was a print designer who began her unique career designing place mats. Eventually she expanded into other home furnishing’s and fashions to create a major design company. Known worldwide simply as Vera, she is acclaimed for her use of brilliant colors, floral patterns and ladybug trademark.
kenneth noland		Kenneth Noland (b. Asheville, North Carolina, 1924) is perhaps best-known for his series of "target paintings" that he began in 1956. Noland studied at Black Mountain College and with Ossip Zadkine in Paris.
georgia o'keeffe		Georgia O'Keeffe (Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, 1887 -1986) was an American artist famous for her paintings of nature and desert landscapes of the southwest region of the United States. O'Keeffe studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Students League in New York and Columbia University.
otto piene		Otto Piene (b.1928, Westphalia, Germany) is an internationally acclaimed artist who studied in Munich, Düsseldorf, and Cologne. In addition to being a painter, light sculptor, designer, and environmental artist, Piene is the former director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies and professor emeritus in the Department of Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
larry rivers		Larry Rivers (1923 - 2002) was a painter, draftsman and printmaker who began his career as a jazz saxophonist. After studying at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts and New York University, he devoted himself to art. Rivers is known for his abstract style, and is often considered a forerunner of the Pop Art movement.
felix martoral rodriguez		Felix Martoral Rodriguez was born in 1948 in New York, of Puerto Rican parents. During his adolescence he moved to Carolina, Puerto Rico, showing a special talent for the arts. He was admitted to the School of Fine Arts of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture where he studied under some of the most important artists in the Island such as Rafael Tufliio, Frank Cervoni, Luis Hernandez Cruz, Augusto Marin and Tomas Batista, among others.
james rosenquist		James Rosenquist (b. 1933, Grand Forks, North Dakota) studied art in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and at the Art Student's League in New York City. Both in Minnesota and later in New York, he was employed as a sign painter and worked on enormous displays, including billboards in New York City's Times Square.
raphael soyer		Raphael Soyer (Borisoglebsk, Russia, 1899 -1987) was considered a master realist painter. Raphael and his twin brother, Moses, were part of New York City's urban realist movement in the late 1920s. Soyer's paintings often focus on neighborhood scenes depicting his fascination with the ordinary people and daily routine of the city around him.
donald sultan		Born in 1951 in Asheville, North Carolina, Sultan was introduced to the art world by his father. After receiving a BFA from the University of North Carolina he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he painted using a variety of non-traditional approaches. After moving to New York Sultan experimented with industrial materials while supporting himself as a construction worker.
wayne thiebaud		Wayne Thiebaud (b. Mesa, Arizona, 1920) is a figurative painter considered one of the "old masters" of the Pop Art movement because of his focus on food and household products. Thiebaud holds honorary doctorate degrees of fine arts from the California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco Art Institute and the Art Institute of Southern California.
mindy weisel		Mindy Weisel (b. 1947, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Germany) is a Washington, D.C. artist. Her work abstractly embellishes life’s often-dark struggle for survival with brilliant colors of hope. Capturing the “feeling of the moment” is imperative to this artist who insists that she is not as interested in depicting what she sees as how she feels about what she sees. Light, movement, and the painterly exploration of color are the hallmarks of her art, which is acclaimed for its rich surfaces and dramatic horizontal and vertical gestures.

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