Cal State L.A. Art Professor Awarded a Los Angeles Fellowship Grant

California State University, Los Angeles’ Art Professor Jack Butler (South Pasadena resident) was recently awarded a City of Los Angeles (COLA) Individual Artist Fellowship Grant, totaling $10,000, for the year 2004-2005.

Butler comments, “This award, as you know, is a very prestigious and much sought after award in the fine arts community of Los Angeles. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment and recognition that it brings to both myself and Cal State L.A.”

As part of the COLA Cultural Affairs Program award, Butler’s artwork will be exhibited along with other winners at the Barnsdall Municipal Gallery on Sunday, May 9, 2004, 2-5 p.m.

“This is foremost an acknowledgement of [Jack Butler’s] personal contributions to the professional art world in Los Angeles,” wrote Ed Forde, chair of the Art Department at Cal State L.A., in a congratulatory letter. Forde noted that the recognition is long overdue in light of Butler’s “years of dedication and production as a significant visual artist in our community.”

Jack Butler, who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cal State L.A., is an artist whose specialty lies in the area of photographic image making. A faculty member at Cal State L.A. since 1988, he is a past recipient of an Individual Artist NEA grant and has had his work exhibited nationally and internationally for the past 25 years. He earned his M.F.A. from UCLA in 1979.

Some of Butler’s selected group exhibitions include: “Short Stories Los Angeles, digitally enhance narratives,” The Bradbury Building, Los Angeles; “Diverse Visions: Current Work by Art Faculty,” Luckman Fine Arts Gallery, Cal State L.A.; “Photography and Art Interactions Since 1946,” Los Angeles County Art Museum; “Jack Butler, 1978-1988,” Min Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; “PLAN: Photography Los Angeles Now,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art; “Proof: Los Angeles Art and the Photograph, 1960-1990,” Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach; “With the ‘Media’, Against the ‘Media’,” Sala Arcs Gallery, Barcelona, Spain, and Long Beach Museum; “Extending the Perimeters of Twentieth-Century Photography,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; “American Photography Today 1984,” School of Art, University of Denver, Colorado; and “California Colour,” The Photographers Gallery, London, England. Butler will also be part of a three-person art show at USC’s Fisher Gallery in February 2004.

California State University, Los Angeles, is a comprehensive university at the heart of a major metropolitan city. The 175-acre hilltop campus is located five miles east of Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. Since 1947, Cal State L.A. has been a leader in providing quality higher education. Today, the campus comprises a faculty of internationally recognized scholars and artists, and more than 21,000 students with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds that reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. The CSU: A leader in high-quality, accessible, student-focused higher education.