BMA : Exhibitions : 2004

Jack O'Shea
2004 FRIENDS OF THE BEACH MUSEUM OF ART GIFT PRINT ARTIST
18 March - 13 June, 2004

John “Jack” O’Shea, K-State professor emeritus of art, has been selected as the Friends of the Beach Museum of Art 2004 Gift Print Artist. O’Shea’s work will be featured in a one-person exhibition at the museum from 18 March to 13 June 2004.

A native of Kansas City, Kansas, O’Shea taught at K-State from 1956 until his retirement in 1997. In addition to printmaking, he taught art history courses for the art department for many years. O’Shea studied at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1950 to 1952 and earned his B.F.A. in art education at the University of Denver in 1954. In 1956 he received an M.F.A. in printmaking from Iowa University, where he studied with Mauricio Lasansky, arguably the most influential teacher of printmaking in America during the second half of the Twentieth Century.

A highly popular and committed teacher at K-State, O’Shea was honored as the recipient of a William L. Stamey Teaching Award in 1992 for his dedication to undergraduate education at K-State. On O’Shea’s retirement, the art department established a scholarship in his name to support undergraduate art majors.

Among O’Shea’s abiding passions is his interest in theater and set design. In the mid-1960s he was involved in several summer stock theater companies in Maine as an art director, set designer, and scenery painter. O’Shea’s work has been exhibited in this country and abroad at institutions such as the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the Walker Art Gallery in Minneapolis, and Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

In 1978 three of O’Shea’s prints were chosen to represent the United States in the Biennial International Exhibition of Graphic Art in Frechen, West Germany. Collections containing O’Shea’s work include the Springfield Art Museum, the Des Moines Art Center, the Memphis Art Institute, and the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.


^ top ^