The College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin has appointed Associate Professor Lee Chesney as interim chair of the Department of Art and Art History, effective Sept. 1, 2011. Chesney will retain the position as the search for a department chair continues.
“Lee’s reliability and even-handedness as associate chair set him apart,” said Dean Douglas Dempster of the College of Fine Arts. “He has done a laudable job managing the thousand details in that role. He has also distinguished himself throughout the university for his handling of the messy business of Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) accreditation, a thankless but indispensable diligence. He has worked closely with John Yancey and the departmental staff and knows nearly everything one might need to know as interim chair. Lee has my unqualified confidence, and I’ll ask for your support as he steps into this position.”
The associate chairman of the Department of Art and Art History since 2005, Chesney has been exploring the field of intaglio printmaking at The University of Texas at Austin for nearly 40 years. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in more than 130 competitive and invitational exhibitions, as well as in public collections in Paris, Rome, Peking, Pretoria, Hong Kong, Boston, San Diego and Honolulu. His compositions prior to 1987 were abstract, using geometric shapes and organic/diaphanous spaces to evoke feelings and relationships within the viewer. A reawakened interest in historical subject matter has guided his experimentations into investigating landscape forms and the viscosity color process, his current research focus.
Chesney received his B.F.A. in painting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1969 and his M.F.A. in printmaking from Indiana University in 1972.
