Penn State Professor Named Pennsylvania Artist of the Year
October 28, 2005
Lonnie Graham, Penn State assistant professor of art and integrative arts, was recently honored by Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell with the Hazlett Memorial Artist of the Year Award. The honor is part of the annual Governor's Awards for the Arts honoring outstanding artists, arts organizations and patrons of the arts in Pennsylvania for their excellence and achievement in the arts. Graham received the award at a recognition ceremony in Greensburg on Tuesday, Oct. 18.
“Pennsylvania has a rich cultural heritage and we continue to build on that foundation,” Governor Rendell said. “This year's talented and visionary awardees represent the significant contributions made to our commonwealth by the members of Pennsylvania's cultural community. It is a great pleasure to recognize these distinguished artists and celebrate their achievements and to honor them with the Commonwealth's highest recognition for artistic talent and service to the arts.”
Graham, formerly of Pittsburgh and currently living in West Chester, is a visual artist, photographer, community activist and teacher whose photographic work, installations and community-based art projects explore a complex array of social and political issues. In addition to teaching at Penn State, he is an instructor of special programs at the Barnes Foundation and a visiting instructor of graduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. Previously, he was a visiting professor at Haverford College and served for many years as curator-in-residence for Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh.
During his tenure as director of photography at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh, an arts organization dedicated to the educational development of disadvantaged urban youth, he developed an afterschool photography program using innovative pilot projects merging the arts and academics. One such project led to the development of the MCG Arts Collaborative, an interactive program between public schools and community organizations. First Lady Hillary Clinton visited these projects, which were officially cited by The White House as a National Model for Education. Graham's efforts also contributed to the development of the CDC/ARI (Community Development Corporation/Arts Resource Initiative), a multi-million dollar multi-year project funded by the Ford Foundation.
Graham has been involved in and won a number of major commissions concerning social and political issues. Among these are the African/American Garden Project, a physical and cultural exchange of disadvantaged urban single mothers, an elderly African-American community, and farmers from the small farming village in Muguga, Kenya; a 1997 commission to travel to Papua New Guinea through the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia to document the work of the Maisins, a people who have successfully blocked the efforts of foreign logging interests to win over their property rights, and have chosen to support themselves by maintaining traditional values rooted in an ancient lifestyle; and a commission from Philadelphia's Fairmont Park Art Association to address the needs of a blighted urban community with revitalization through the arts, cultural activities, and various entrepreneurial ventures.
Most recently, Graham was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a National Endowment for the Arts/Pew Charitable Trust Travel Grant for travels to Ghana. He is a three-time Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship recipient and has also been nominated as a DuPont Fellow and for the Cal Arts–Alpert Award in the Arts.
Graham's work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of African American History in Detroit; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Delaware Museum of Art; and the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Mass.
An open call for nominations for the 2005 Governor's Awards for the Arts was issued to arts organizations, artists, arts patrons, elected officials and members of the public. A panel composed of current and past members of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts reviewed the nominations and made their recommendations to Governor Rendell. Other 2005 honorees include mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne and Newberry Award-winning author Lloyd Alexander. Past recipients of the Artist of the Year Award include pianist Lang Lang; conductor and composer Andre Previn; dancer LaVaughn Robinson; poet Gerald Stern; architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown; sculptor Thaddeus Mosely; ceramist Rudolph Staffel; and Freedom Theatre founder John Allen Jr.
For more on the 2005 honorees, visit http://papress.state.pa.us/parelease/data/1050929.000.htm
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Contact: Amy Milgrub Marshall, alm157@psu.edu or 814.863.2104