WALL DRAWINGS

DEBORAH HOWARD
BIOGRAPHY Deborah Howard grew up in the Chicago area and has lived and worked in Israel, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Minnesota and Colorado. She is married to artist Robert St. John and their son Solomon is an educator. Deborah received her BFA degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in drawing and printmaking and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in printmaking and painting. Currently Deborah heads the Painting Program at University of Denver. Deborah has taught for over thirty years in higher education at the University of Denver (DU), University of Minnesota in Duluth and Louisiana State University in Shreveport. She has taught etching and all levels of drawing and painting. She has an expertise in encaustic painting and has taught many workshops including at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass CO. Portraits of Child Holocaust Survivors Most significant is Deborah’s five-year project Portraits of Child Holocaust Survivors. From 2003-2008 she interviewed and drew twenty-five Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Denver, Chicago and Los Angeles. The project has been exhibited at the Mizel Museum in Denver, Hendrix College in Arkansas, University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and the DU Library. Four portraits are in the permanent collection of the Holocaust Art Museum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Israel. The remaining twenty-one drawings as well as study materials, and associated artworks are part of the Beck Archives in the DU library. It is catalogued and on-line enabling students and researchers studying the Holocaust, World War II and art and other subjects to benefit from this collection. INTERNATIONAL SOLO EXHIBITIONS Migration and Memory at the Venice Jewish Museum in Italy 2017 Important was Deborah’s exhibition at the Venice Jewish Museum where she interpreted the Venetian Jewish experience in a universal and contemporary manner. Work was in two galleries that were once part of the Museum’s 500-year-old synagogue. In the 200-year-old Antique Sukkah Gallery Memory was suggested by an ethereal environment of silk hangings printed with photos of the Venice Jewish Ghetto, cemetery and Deborah’s paintings. In the Women’s Room Gallery Migration was suggested by glass shoes that seemed to be walking and an aluminum wall sculpture with casts of women’s boots that seemed to swim. SACI College of Art and Design in Florence, Italy 2007 Exhibited encaustic paintings and gave encaustic workshop. INTERNATIONAL LECTURES Venice Jewish Museum in Italy 2017 Talk addressed Venice Jewish History and the universal connections of Jewish migration to all humanity and to all life forms that migrate around the world. SACI College of Art and Design in Florence Italy 2007 Lecture on creative development. Renmin University in Beijing China 2010 Two lectures on personal work and teaching painting at DU. REGIONAL AND NATIONAL SOLO EXHIBITIONS Beyond the Shore at the University of Denver 2013 This was an extensive and experimental exhibition focusing on shoes from different time periods as part of paintings, sculptures and installations. The shoes were cast in glass, bronze, resin, clay, paper and plaster. She was awarded a $20,000 DU Professional Research Opportunities for Faculty (PROF) Grant to experiment with hundreds of shoes to research the question: At what point does the accumulation of a particular object reach a threshold at which it is transformed into something new and poetic? Edge, Spark and Core Galleries and Regis University in Denver University of Northern Colorado in Greeley Duluth Art Institute in Minnesota Transit Gallery and Craft Alliance in Shreveport LA Texas Christian University in Forth Worth REGIONAL AND NATIONAL GROUP EXHIBITIONS Arvada Art Center, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Aspen Art Museum in Colorado Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans Peace Museum in Chicago IL City College Of New York. AWARDS Deborah has received numerous DU Awards including: a PROF for her 2013 Solo Exhibition at DU, two Anna Maglione-Sie Research Travel Grants in Italian Studies and an Internationalization grant to support her Venice exhibition. REVIEWS Greeley Tribune, Rocky Mountain News and Westward in Colorado. Shreveport Times in LA, and From the Ashes: Art Community, and Culture Exposed in Tempe AZ. RADIO INTERVIEW Deborah was interviewed on Colorado Public Radio about Portraits of Child Holocaust Survivors PUBLISHED ARTICLE Migration and memory: My Italian Journey in The Journal of European Popular Culture, April 2019.