Thursday, December 13, 2007

Joan Mitchell Foundation Award to Michael Sarich

[press release below from the University of Nevada, Reno Department of Art and Sheppard Gallery]

December 12, 2007

Mike Sarich awarded prestigious national award.

This morning Michael Sarich, associate professor of Art at the University of Nevada, Reno since 1989, was informed via telephone by The Joan Mitchell Foundation (NY) that he is selected as one of twenty award recipients. The award is up to $25,000 and is awarded based first on nomination and then application for painters and sculptors.

Mike Sarich is in good company, as recent recipients include internationally renown artists Doh-ho Suh, Kara Walker, Mark Dion, Tom Friedman, Janine Antoini, and recent Sheppard Gallery exhibitors and visiting artists Polly Apfelbaum and Chakaia Booker.

Joan Mitchell, born in 1925, is an important and deeply established American painter who died in northern France in 1992. Even though an expatriate since the '50's, Mitchell was considered a crucial artist of the New York School of second-generation abstract expressionism, affecting artists around the world.

In January 2008, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno will install a mid-career traveling retrospective exhibition and catalogue of Sarich's paintings, drawings, prints and ceramic sculptures. UNR students, alumnae, faculty and staff continue to be wholly inspired by Mike's intelligence, generosity and humor, from which his artwork and teaching is the conduit. It's with great affection and appreciation that we share his success and wish him the best of congratulations and thank him for his continuing inspiration. The University of Nevada, Reno is privileged to regard such an excellent artist and professor amongst their own.

[painting by Michael Sarich from Austin Peay State University Department of Art Web site.]

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