Campus Center Gallery, University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, Hilo, Hawaii

The Art Department of the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo and the Student Activities Council present a retrospective exhibition featuring three master printmakers, Lee Chesney, Ken Kerslake, and Krishna Reddy in the Campus Center Gallery and the Art Department Gallery during October, 2007 to April, 2008.

The artists have been teachers of art during long and impressive careers. The sum total of the years of teaching that the three master artists have taught young artists is more than a century. They have influenced several generations of artists who, in turn, work and teach throughout the United States and abroad.

Featured Artists

Lee Chesney

Lee Chesney (b. 1921) is Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Printmaker Emeritus, Southern Graphics Council. Lee Chesney has had a distinguished career as a university educator and administrator for over thirty years. He served on the faculty and directed the graduate printmaking and painting programs at the University of Illinois during 1950-67. He was Associate Dean of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California from 1967 to 1972 and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in painting and printmaking at the University of Hawaiʻi during 1972-84.

Chesney's work is included in the National Gallery of Art and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Chicago Art Institute, Illinois; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; Portland (Oregon) Art Museum; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France; National Gallery of Art, Sweden; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Gallery, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Tokyo (Japan) Museum of Modern Art; and many other major public collections throughout the world.

He has received many awards and prizes, including a Fulbright fellowship to Japan and has presented his work in several hundred national and international group exhibitions and in more than two score solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad. In 1998, Chesney presented a solo exhibition of paintings at the Parson School of Design in Paris. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California and in Burgundy, France.

Krishna Reddy

Krishna Reddy was born in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh in 1925. He joined Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan in 1941 and completed his studies there in 1946. After graduation, he taught art at Kalakshetra in Madras for three years between 1947 and 1950. Going abroad in 1951, he studied for two years at the Slade School of Fine Arts, London. He studied sculpture with Ossip Zadkine in Paris (1952-55), and with Marino Marini in Milan (1956-57). In Paris, he also studied engraving with S.W. Hayter during 1953-55. Reddy worked and taught at Hayter’s Atelier 17 in Paris from 1957 to 1976. He became an associate director at Atelier 17 in1965.

Considered a master in intaglio printmaking, Krishna Reddy has been guest professor at many top-ranking universities in the United States. Reddy received the Padma Shri in 1972. The Padma Shri is an award bestowed by the Government of India generally to Indian citizens in recognition for distinguished contributions in various spheres of activity including the Arts, Education, Industry, Literature, Science, Sports, Social Service and public life. The word "Padma" (Sanskrit) means "Lotus".

He has presented more than 200 solo exhibitions of his work throughout the world. His work is in more than 250 international museum and major private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the British Museum, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the Albertina Museum, Vienna; and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Krishna Reddy was named Printmaker Emeritus by the Southern Graphics Council (U.S.) in 2000 and is featured in a monograph, Krishna's Cosmos, the Creativity of an Artist, Sculptor and Teacher, authored by Ratnottama Sengupta and published in 2003. Reddy is Professor Emeritus in Art at New York University where he taught for over twenty years after leaving Paris.

Ken Kerslake

Ken Kerslake (1930-2007) was a practicing artist-printmaker and a Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida where he founded of the Printmaking Program. He attended Pratt Institute (New York) for three years and received both his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the University of Illinois in painting and printmaking.

Kerslake’s works have been included in many competitive, invitational and solo exhibitions at universities, museums, and commercial galleries across the country and abroad, including: "30 Years of American Printmaking, 20th Annual Exhibition of Prints" at the Brooklyn Museum in New York; "XI International Biennale of Graphic Art" in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia; "Sixth British International Print Biennale" in Bradford, England; "In Celebration of Prints, A Memorial Exhibition Honoring Lessing J. Rosenwald" at The Print Club, Philadelphia; "Art Under Pressure" at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; "New American Graphics" at the University of Wisconsin and the Madison Art Center; "Architecture in Prints" at the Pratt Graphic Center, New York City; "Photo/Graphics" at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and "Thirty American printmakers" at the Ohio State University.

Work by Ken Kerslake is included in the public collections of the Brooklyn Museum; The Library of Congress and the National Collection; Yale University Art Gallery; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Krannert Gallery of Art, University of Illinois; Museum of Fine Art, Florida State University; The Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the Johnson Wax Collection, Racine, Wisconsin and many university collections. In September 1996 he was honored with a retrospective exhibition at the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida. The catalog for this exhibition includes an essay by Larry Perkins, Curator of Collections and a foreword by Dr. Carol Pulin, Director, American Print Alliance and former Curator of Prints & Photographs, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The Kenneth Kerslake Memorial Fund for Student Subscriptions (Ken’s Fund)

In honor of Ken Kerslake, who of all his many awards was proudest of his recognitions for teaching excellence, our board of directors has established The Kenneth Kerslake Memorial Fund for Student Subscriptions to Contemporary Impressions, the journal of the American Print Alliance.

Ken was one of the founders of the American Print Alliance and served on our board for many, many years; without him, the Alliance would probably never have survived. He was such an exceptional person as well as a superb artist: every conversation inspired us to think deeper and do more, every print stirred our emotions. He understood so well that students are the future and he treated students as colleagues - working together in the studio and talking together about the most significant issues in contemporary art and the world.

Ken's Fund subscriptions provides full membership benefits to the Print Alliance. Students must be enrolled full time in a college, community college, university or art institute and must be nominated by member councils or by subscribers who teach printmaking, papermaking or book arts.

Acknowledgements

• Wayne Miyamoto, Professor of Art, Project director, catalogue editor
• Michael Marshall, Professor of Art, Gallery chair, photography
• Andrew Grabar, Associate Professor of Art, Digital reproductions, DVD editor, artists’ biographies
• Meidor Hu, Instructor, Hawaiʻi Community College, DVD design
• Darin Igawa, Designer, Media Center, Catalogue design
• Art faculty, exhibition installation
• Catalogue text:
  • Clint Willour, Curator, Galveston Arts Center, Texas
  • Dr. Carol Pulin, Director, American Print Alliance, Atlanta, Georgia
  • Leonard Lehrer, Dean, Columbia College, Chicago
  • Sven Anderson, Professor, SUNY, Oneonta
  • Michael Ehlbeck, Professor, East Carolina University, North Carolina
• Student volunteers:
  • Natasha Johns
  • Alyssum Mensoff
  • Naia Lopes
  • Kassy Patrick
  • Joe Laceby
  • Tsou-Pin Chen
  • Avery Berido
  • Piotr Walczuk
  • Ean Barry
  • Jeffrey Schmidt
  • Karrieanne Turvey
  • Patrick Warren
  • Mia Munekata
• The art faculty, UH Hilo, exhibition preparation and installation

Exhibition Location

The Campus Center Gallery is located on the third floor of the Campus Center at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. The Art Department Gallery is in Building 395, Manono Campus. An exhibition program will be available at the Campus Center information desk or through the Art Department. For more information regarding the exhibition, please contact the Art Department.

Works