Curlee Holton Appointed Permanent Executive Director Of Umd'S David C. Driskell Center
July 18, 2014
Holton will help advance visual arts at Maryland, engaging faculty and students in collaborations with the center.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The College of Arts and Humanities has appointed Curlee R. Holton as the permanent executive director of the David C. Driskell Center and senior artist-in-residence in the Department of Art, effective July 1, 2014.
Holton has served in the position as consultant and interim executive director for the center since July 2012. He comes to us from Lafayette College in Easton, PA where he has served as the David M. and Linda Roth Professor of Art and founding director of the Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI).
"I’ve been impressed with Curlee’s performance in his interim executive director role over the past two years," said Bonnie Thornton Dill, Dean for the College of Arts and Humanities. "He is a wise administrator who understands the many aspects of arts management from the perspective of a scholar and an artist. I’m pleased to work with him to institutionalize key projects that will help advance the center’s mission."
Holton will also serve as senior artist-in-residence in the Department of Art, engaging with faculty and students in collaborative projects between the department and the center. This dual appointment serves an important role in advancing the visual arts at Maryland and provides an important cultural engagement on African American art accessible to students and faculty.
An artist-scholar, Holton is an internationally renowned printmaker and painter whose work has been exhibited professionally for over 25 years in more than 60 one-person shows and over 100 group shows in such prestigious national and international venues as the 7th International Biennale in Cairo, Egypt; Taller de Artes Plasticás Rufino Tamayo in Oaxaca, Mexico; the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
He earned his M.F.A. with honors from Kent State University and his B.F.A. from the Cleveland Institute of Art in Drawing and Printmaking.