Professor Emeritus of Art and former Charles S. Farrar-Laura Norcross Marrs Professor of Fine Arts Arthur Thrall will be among six state artists recognized Sunday, May 22 by the Museum of Wisconsin Art with the Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award. The Milwaukee Institute Of Art & Design also will be honored.
Thrall joined the Lawrence art department in 1964 following the consolidation with Milwaukee Downer College, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1956. He retired from Lawrence in 1990, but has remained an active artist in retirement in Milwaukee.
A painter and printmaker with an international reputation, Thrall has been the recipient of more than 75 awards, including “Artist of the Year” honors in 1984 by the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship in Printmaking.
His works have appeared in more than 500 exhibitions as well as the White House and are included in the permanent collections of the British Museum, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Gallery in England, the Smithsonian Institute, the Library of Congress and the Chicago Art Institute, among others.
Founded in 2004, the WVALAA is essentially the state “Hall of Fame” for those who have supported the visual arts with distinction. The honor is presented to both individuals and organizations in recognition of extraordinary contributions to the creation, support and growth of visual arts in and of Wisconsin.
The awards ceremony, which is free and open to the public, begins at 1:30 p.m. and will be held at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.
