Distinguished Alumni

Ken Anderson Professor of Art, Art Department Chair and Gallery Director, Peru State College

Ken Anderson received his BFA from UNO in 1980 and his MFA in sculpture from UNL in 1983. He began teaching at Peru State College 1984.

His work has been shown nationally and internationally and his work is included in numerous public and private collections. In 2008 he was awarded "First Place" in the Winds of Life exhibition - a windmill-themed statewide sculpture competition in Nebraska.

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Kate Bingaman-Burt Designer/Asst. Professor of Graphic Design, Portland State University

Kate Bingaman-Burt is an illustrator, educator, and maker of things.

She has been making work about consumption since 2002, teaching since 2004 and drawing until her hand cramps since 2006. Her first book, Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010 and her second book, What Did I Buy Today?, was released from Princeton Architectural Press in December of 2012.

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Karen Blessen Pulitzer Prize Winner

Karen Blessen is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and artist. In 1989 she was the first graphic artist to be named as a Pulitzer winner. She is from Columbus, Nebraska, and graduated from UNL in 1973 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Read more about Karen Blessen

Roger Carlisle Artist and Educator

Roger Carlisle’s work has been shown in major competitions throughout the country, including Arts for the Parks National Competition in Jackson Hole, WY. He was commissioned to design the Arkansas sesquicentennial stamp in 1986 for the U.S. Postal Service and numerous collector panels for the U.S. Postal Commemorative Society. Carlisle's works are found in many public and private collections. Read more about Roger Carlisle

Trent Claus visual effects artist, Lola VFX

Trent Claus, a Lincoln native and 2006 graduate of UNL's Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, is an award-winning visual effects artist with Lola VFX. He has worked on more than 120 feature films, 10 of which have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and four of which won the award. In 2012, he was awarded the Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture for his groundbreaking work on "Captain America: The First Avenger." Read more about Trent Claus

Bruce Conner artist

Bruce Conner was a key figure in the Beat community and the international assemblage "movement." In addition, his short movies established him as one of the most important figures in postwar independent filmmaking. Conner was among the first to use pop music for film sound tracks. His films have inspired generations of filmmakers and are now considered to be the precursors of the music video genre. Conner continued to make art until shortly before his death in 2008. Read more about Bruce Conner

Aaron Douglas Painter, Muralist

Aaron Douglas became a leading visual artist during the Harlem Renaissance. In fact, he was called the "Dean of African-American painters." Douglas' work was published regularly in The Crisis. He also illustrated for Opportunity and Vanity Fair magazines. His most famous illustrations were for James Weldon Johnson's book of poetic sermons, God's Trombones. Alain Locke called him a "pioneering Africanist" and used his illustrations in his famous anthology, The New Negro, published in 1925 in which his classic essay "The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts" appeared. Read more about Aaron Douglas

D.B. Dowd Professor of Art, Washington University in St. Louis

D.B. Dowd produced the original 108-week "Sam the Dog" saga in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1997 to 1999 and has provided periodic illustration work for the New Yorker magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. Dowd has work in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Fogg Musuem of Art at Harvard, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others. His work was highlighted in the "Creative Showcase" feature of the magazine Graphis (March/April 2000). Read more about D.B. Dowd

Anne El-Omami Director of Education, Joslyn Art Museum

Anne El-Omami was named a Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association in 1998. In 2003, she was the winner of the Richard C. von Hess Faculty Prize at U. Arts. El-Omami has authored scores of publications and has developed and implemented innovative and creative leadership opportunities for museum professionals, art specialists in the visual arts, university faculties, and the corporate community. Her consultancies include work with the Pew Charitable Trust, the Getty Center, Kellogg Foundation, Terra Museum of American Art, and National Endowment for the Arts. Read more about Anne El-Omami

Christopher Ervin Visual Effects Artist, Creative Director, Designer

Christopher Ervin has worked on dozens of feature films, over 150 television spots and promotional campaigns, and received a Best Visual Effects nomination for the 2003 DVD Premiere Movie Awards. His company, VelocityApe FX has worked with labels such as Sony/Epic, Nickelodeon, Interscope Records and The FX Network and artists such as Limp Bizkit, Metallica, Bryan Adams, No Doubt and Eminem. Read more about Christopher Ervin

Margaret Furlong ceramics artist

Since receiving her Master's Degree in Fine Arts in 1976, Margaret Furlong has become a ceramics artist of national renown. Best known for her porcelain angels, which she designed and first manufactured at her studio in Lincoln soon after graduation, she now is the owner and president of Margaret Furlong Designs. The company produces porcelain giftware and has a factory in Salem, Oregon, that employs about 50 people. Read more about Margaret Furlong

Lari Gibbons associate professor of art, University of North Texas, Denton

Lari R. Gibbons’ drawings and prints have been featured in numerous national, international and traveling exhibitions in venues such as the Centre of Culture Promotion (Czestochowa, Poland). Her work has earned many awards, notably from “Espacio de Art” (Rosario, Argentina) and it is held in permanent collections such as the City Gallery (Uzice, Serbia, Yugoslavia). Gibbons has been an Artist-in-Residence at numerous institutions, including Anchor Graphics (Chicago, Illinois). Read more about Lari Gibbons

Marcia B. Goldenstein Professor Emerita, University of Tennessee-Knoxville

(B.F.A. 1970, M.F.A. 1973). Goldenstein is Professor Emerita at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where she taught painting and drawing for 38 years. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions in Beijing, Chengdu and Fuzhou, China, as well as Bratislava, Slovakia. Her collections include the Knoxville Museum of Art, the Great Plains Art Museum at UNL, the Tennessee Valley Authority, General Motors and IBM.

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Jane Gregorius Professor Emeritus, Cabrillo College, California

Jane Gregorius’ most important long-term contributions are through her development and organization of two extraordinary environments to create rich opportunities for creativity and dialog. She was a founding member of the group that led the Summervail Workshops in Vail, Colorado, from 1971–1984, which brought together 70 artists for workshops throughout the summer. Similarly, she is a founder of the Yuma Symposium, Yuma, Arizona, ongoing since 1985 through today. Read more about Jane Gregorius

Fred Hagstrom Professor of Art, Carlton College, Northfield, Minnesota

Fred Hagstrom works and teaches in all of the print media: intaglio, relief, lithography, silk-screen and letterpress. Much of his work has been in relief, often in large-scale prints from carved wood blocks or plastic plates. Hagstrom also worked at Atelier 17 in Paris and taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art. His work is in a number of public collections, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Museum of Art and the Weismann Museum at the University of Minnesota. Read more about Fred Hagstrom

Joan Hall Professor of Art, Washington University in St. Louis

Joan Hall has been a visiting artist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, and at the Internationale Sommerakademie fur Bildende Kunst in Salzburg, Austria. Hall has exhibited internationally in museums such as Museum Aernstelle, The Netherlands; The Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, Hungary; and Musee D'Art, France. Her work is in the collection of several museums, including Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Suwa Municipal Museum, Japan. Read more about Joan Hall

Melissa Haviland associate professor, Ohio University, School of Art

Melissa Haviland received her MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in December 2002.

Her work straddles the boundaries between printmaking and installation-performance. She explores lineage, ritual, and practice within objects that are gendered and classed, like fine china.

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Billy Howard Gallery Director

Billy Howard’s gallery – Howard House – is one of the most highly regarded on the West Coast. He has served as the President of the Seattle Art Museum, the Contemporary Art Council, and the Seattle Art Dealers Association. He is also an ex officio member of the board of the Seattle Art Museum. Howard completed an MFA in ceramics at University of Washington in Seattle. Read more about Billy Howard

Holly Jerger Director of Public Programs, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles

Jerger is the Director of Public Programs at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles where she teaches and oversees a variety of art programs and also works in exhibition development. She has also coordinated programs with many institutions including UCLA, the Getty Center, and the Museum of Jurassic Technology. She has taught art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Fullerton Museum Center in Orange County, and the City of Los Angeles, Department of Recreation and Parks. Read more about Holly Jerger

Doug Martin Painter

Doug Martin is represented by the Charles Cowles Gallery in New York, NY, and he has been a Resident Fellow at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY, on several occasions.

His work is included in distinguished public collections including the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE; and Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. He received his MFA from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1975.

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Lawrence McFarland Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin

Lawrence McFarland is highly regarded nationally and is noted for his creative activity, teaching and service to the field of photography. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, and was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2010. McFarland concentrates on landscape photography. Read more about Lawrence McFarland

Catherine Meier Artist

Catherine Meier explores the meaning of “open space” through animation, site-specific installations, and large-scale prints and drawings. Representing a state of mind as well as a state of being, these expansive landscapes are redolent of the artist’s own travels crossing the Great Plains of North America and the Mongolian Steppe where her experience of freedom and boundlessness also fueled feelings of fear and paranoia. Meier has shown her work in gallery and museum settings in the Midwest, South, and Japan, at film festivals, and in the very landscapes that gave rise to her drawings. She has a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and an MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her awards include a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship for Graduate study, two from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, and a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship. Read more about Catherine Meier

Richard Moses Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Richard Moses has exhibited in more than 300 solo, small group, invitational and competitive exhibitions.

His work is represented in 15 museums and numerous private collections. He retired after 39 years overall with the last 36 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he taught drawing, painting, and design and headed the Foundation Art and Design Program.

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Zora J. Murff

Zora J Murff is an artist and educator living in Arkansas. He is interested in the social capacities and functions of images, specifically, the many realities born from the creation of Blackness inside of the so-called "American" context (1619–present-day). Murff mainly shares his work through publications and has the pleasure of making four monographs, the most recent True Colors (or, Affirmations in a Crisis) published by Aperture Foundation in 2022.

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John Nygren Glass Artist

John Nygren is a senior member of the North Carolina glass art community and a renowned American master. The central theme reflected in his glass art has always been a deep-felt reverence toward nature. He was named the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Artist of the Year in 2000, and his work has been shown in more than 350 exhibitions throughout the U.S. Collections that feature his work include the Smithsonian Institution and The Mint Museum in Charlotte. Read more about John Nygren

Nancy Palmeri associate professor, graduate advisor, University of Texas at Arlington

Nancy Palmeri has had solo exhibitions of her work in New York, Boston, Louisiana, Texas, Italy, Chicago, and Virginia. Recently, her prints were included in Color Print USA, Lubbock, TX; Global Matrix International Print Exhibition, Purdue University Art Gallery; and the Frans Masereel Graphic Art Center’s Jubilee Exhibition, Belgium. She has also curated three exhibitions at the gallery on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington: Anthropology in Print; Pervasive Impressions: Contemporary Political Prints; and Foundations: Mechanics and Instinct. Palmeri has lectured at the International Humanities Conference, Cambridge, UK. Read more about Nancy Palmeri

Vince Quevedo Designer/Associate Professor, Oklahoma State University

Vince Quevedo is a national and international award-winning designer.

His art-to-wear designs have garnered him prestigious awards for his creativity, ingenuity, and fine craftsmanship. His designs have been exhibited in France, England, Germany, South Korea, Japan and many other countries.

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Tom Riesing Chair, Ball State University, Muncie Indiana

Tom Riesing has twice been awarded the University of Tennessee School of Art's prestigious three-year Ellen McClung Berry Fellowship, honoring a faculty member outstanding in professional activity, teaching and community service. He has visited China 16 times in the past several years lecturing and teaching at 13 universities and academies, writing articles for a contemporary Chinese art magazine, organizing official exchanges and exhibiting his work. He has recently been honored as Permanent Visiting Professor at Sichuan University. Read more about Tom Riesing

Jean (McLaughlin) Satterly artist, educator, illustrator

Jean (McLaughlin) Satterly has been a certified teacher of visual arts for more than 35 years. She has also been a professional artist and contributor to the central Nebraska arts scene. She has taught at many levels, including elementary school, junior high and high school. She retired in 2003 as art teacher at Grand Island Central Catholic High School. Since retirement, she has been involved in many community art and educational projects, and has been recognized for her talents and contributions to the arts. Read more about Jean (McLaughlin) Satterly

Denny Schmickle Artist and Educator

Denny Schmickle is an artist and graphic designer who specializes in hand-printed silkscreen concert posters, gallery installations, and artwork that investigates how the two practices interact. He is Assistant Professor of Art at Rogers State University in Northeastern Oklahoma.

He received a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2006, and a bachelor’s degree from College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo.

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T.L. Solien Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

T.L. Solien's work has been in numerous exhibitions, including the 1983 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the 39th Biennial Exhibition of American Painting at the Corcoran Museum in Washington, D.C. His work has also been featured in numerous university, museum, and corporate collections, including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Fredrick Weismann Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Read more about T.L. Solien

Darius A. Spieth San Diego Alumni Association Chapter Alumni Professor of Art History, Louisiana State University

Darius A. Spieth is an art historian and San Diego Alumni Association Chapter Alumni Professor at Louisiana State University. Prof. Spieth received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and also holds an M.B.A. degree in finance from the International University of Japan in Niigata. In 2011, he was selected as Mellon Visiting Professor by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Prof. Spieth is best known for his studies on art markets and French Egyptomania, and currently serves as subject editor for Art Markets, Law and Economics for the Grove Dictionary of Art (Oxford University Press). Read more about Darius A. Spieth

Ronald Watson Art and Art History Department Chair, Texas Christian University

Ronald Watson has been awarded an Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1975) and two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1977 and 1991). He has been a guest artist at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Ohio State University, and Lehman College in New York. His work is in more than a dozen public and corporate collections including the National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C. Watson has published one book and five exhibition catalogues. Read more about Ronald Watson

John Robert Weaver Portrait Artist

John Robert Weaver is one of Nebraska's most celebrated artists. His work ranges from his early illustrations to paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. He may be most noted for his expressive portraits. His works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Nebraska Art and the Sheldon Museum of Art as well as the Oklahoma Art Center, University of Missouri, Albrecht Art Museum and The Canton Art Institute. He received a Governor's Arts Award in 1978 and a Helen Haggie Award in 1989. Read more about John Robert Weaver