The free exhibit “Marvin Saltzman: Works from 1948” will open in the John and June Allcott Gallery in the Hanes Art Center on Aug. 4.
It features the work of Saltzman, who was a professor in the UNC art department from 1967 to 1996 and former chair of studio art. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 8 to 5 p.m.
The exhibit runs through Aug. 29. A closing reception and lecture, “Why I am what I am … When, Why and How,” will be held Aug. 28 at 6 p.m. in Hanes 121.
Before coming to UNC in 1967, Saltzman had been a curator, a U.S. Treasury Officer and on the faculty of Eastern Oregon College, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Southern California.
At Carolina, he established a print program, the Kachergis and Sharpe Scholarships and the Friedman/Saltzman Fund. As chair, he was responsible for the Art Lab Building, the University Creative Leave program and, with Joseph Sloane, the Hanes Art Center. He also was instrumental in helping the art department’s faculty move toward racial and gender diversity.
Saltzman was born in 1931 in Chicago, but from six months of age he was a resident of Long Beach, Calif. He came from a family of painters. His first exhibited work was in the fourth grade, a seascape painted on the back of a wallpaper roll. He attended San Diego State College, Long Beach City College and Pasadena City College, served in the U.S. Army in Korea (becoming a disabled war veteran) and afterward attended the School of the Art Institute. In 1959, he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern California. Even before graduating, his work was accepted in every important national juried print and drawing show and twice at the LACMA Los Angeles and Vicinity juried exhibition.
In 1998, Saltzman was a recipient of the North Carolina Award in Fine Arts “for his strong, passionate, abstract paintings and the equally strong feelings he inspires in students. For almost 40 years he has consistently challenged young artists . . . .”
Since 1968, Saltzman has drawn site-specific works from nature and painted in series about nature, producing work with titles such as Eastern Oregon, The Los Angeles Basin, The Oxford Canal, Homage to Gaudi, The Gorge du Verdon and The French Alps. Today, he still travels, drawing work that in the future may become a painting series. At the age of 83 he paints daily. Saltzman has always given credit to his late wife Jacquelyn and his children Paul and Leslie who he said gave a large part of their lives to allow him to be a teacher and a painter.
For more information, contact Jina Valentine, valent@email.unc.edu.
