MFA Guest Artist Lecture Series: Spring 2024
All Visiting Artist Lectures will take place at 11:00 a.m. in Room 144
Visual & Performing Arts Center
Westside Campus: 43 Lake Avenue Extension, Danbury, CT
Gregory Manchess
ILLUSTRATOR
Tues, Feb 6, 2024
Gregory Manchess is an award-winning illustrator whose work has appeared on the covers and feature stories of National Geographic Magazine, Time, Atlantic Monthly, and The Smithsonian. He has also had numerous commissions from the US Postal Service, recently a set of Christmas stamps in 2023.
Manchess’ projects and commissions are varied and vast in scope. In 2011, the National Geographic Society sent him on an expedition to illustrate the adventures of the first discovery of an actual pirate ship; this led to the traveling exhibition, “Real Pirates: The Untold Story of The Whydah, from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship.” In 2017, his first ‘widescreen novel,’ which he wrote and illustrated, Above the Timberline, was released. Thirty of the 120+ paintings from the book were recently featured in an exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA. His work is also highlighted in the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, with a large portrait of Lincoln and seven major paintings of key moments from Lincoln’s life.
Manchess exhibits frequently at the Society of Illustrators in NYC, and in 1999, he was presented with their highest honor, the Hamilton King Award. He is included in Walt Reed’s edition of The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000, and currently lectures at universities and colleges nationwide.
Seth Becker
PAINTER
Tues, Feb 20, 2024
Seth Becker is a painter who lives and works in Wappingers Falls, NY. He is also a librarian at the Newburgh Free Library. Born in New York City, he received a BFA in Art History from Marymount Manhattan College, a MFA in painting from the New York Studio School, and a Master of Library Science from Queens College, CUNY.
Becker’s work has been in solo exhibitions at numerous galleries, including recent shows at Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson, NY, and at Castle Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. On February 1, 2024, a solo exhibit opens at Venus over Manhattan gallery in NYC. His work has also been shown in group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, at LDGR, NYC; Sears-Peyton Gallery, NYC; Bowery Gallery, NYC; Sibyl Gallery, New Orleans; Susquehanna Art Museum in Harrisburg, PA, and Cob Gallery in London.
Becker has been awarded artist residencies at Dumfries House Residency in Ayrshire, Scotland, and Four Pillars Residency in Mt. Gretna, PA. In 2019 he co-curated “Reading Painting” with Maya Strauss, an exhibition of painting and artist’s books at Treasure Town in Brooklyn. He has been a visiting artist at the University of New Hampshire, and from 2019 to 2022, he was an adjunct professor of painting at the New York Studio School.
Melinda Beck
ILLUSTRATOR
Tues, March 5, 2024
Melinda Beck is an illustrator, animator, and graphic designer who received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She has worked for numerous clients, such as 2K Games; The New York Public Library; Nickelodeon; Nike; The New Yorker; The New York Times; Time Magazine; Random House; the Southern Poverty Law Center; Target; and the U.S. Postal Service. Her artwork has received many honors, including two Emmy nominations, as well as silver and gold medals from the Society of Illustrators. She has also received awards from the Art Directors Club, Society of Publication Designers, and Broadcast Design. Additionally, a series of her political illustrations was acquired by the Library of Congress for their permanent collection.
Melinda’s recent projects include a series of stamps for the U.S. Postal Service commemorating the 50th anniversary of the passage of TITLE IX; an eighty-foot mural for Mural Arts Philadelphia; a series of murals for the teen center of the newly renovated Mid-Manhattan New York Public Library at 42nd Street & 5th Avenue; and the children’s book, We Are Shapes, which she wrote and illustrated.
Melinda lives and works in NYC, where she currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. She has also taught at Parsons School of Design and has been a visiting artist and lecturer at many art institutions here and abroad.
Eric Aho
PAINTER
Wed, March 27, 2024
Eric Aho is a painter who lives and works in Saxtons River, VT. He studied at the Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London and received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. In 1989, he participated in the first exchange of scholars in over thirty years between the U.S. and Cuba. He completed his graduate work at the Lahti Art Institute in Finland on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1991-92 and an American-Scandinavian Foundation grant in 1993.
Aho’s works have been exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad. Currently represented by DC Moore Gallery in NYC, he has had 7 solo exhibitions there from 2009 to 2022. He has also had several museum shows, including the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, the Hood Museum of Art, and Portland Art Museum. In 2016, the New Britain Museum of American Art presented “Eric Aho: An Unfinished Point in a Vast Surrounding,” which comprised over 50 paintings of the French landscape exploring the path of his father’s experience in WW II.
In 2009, Aho was elected to the National Academy Museum. He is a recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant; the John Koch Award for Painting from the National Academy; and an Artist Residency at the Weir Farm National Historical Park. His works are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The New York Public Library; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; New Britain Museum of American Art; Denver Art Museum; and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, among others.
Judy Glantzman
INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST
Wed, April 24, 2024
Judy Glantzman is an interdisciplinary artist and a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. Exhibiting since 1983, she first received critical attention for early shows in the East Village at Civilian Warfare and Gracie Mansion, then later with Blum Helman and Hirschl & Adler Modern. Since 2006, she has been represented by the Betty Cuningham Gallery. She has taught at RISD, New York Studio School, MICA, and Purchase College. In 2018, she was Artist in Residence at Dartmouth College.
Glantzman’s work has been shown and reviewed throughout the U.S. and internationally in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Canada. She was honored by The Dactyl Foundation in NYC with a thirty-year retrospective in 2009. Her 2019 solo show at Betty Cuningham Gallery was a forty-year retrospective, which inspired a public interview with art historian Jennifer Samet, later published in Hyperallergic.
Glantzman’s numerous awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship; two NY Foundation for the Arts grants; a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant; Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation grant; and a NY Artist Space Exhibition grant. In 2018, she was elected to the National Academy of Design. Her works are in many private and public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art; Phoenix Art Museum; Tampa Museum of Art; Weatherspoon Art Museum; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.