Howardena Pindell is honoured with the rank of Distinguished Professor by the State University of New York

The artist is one of three faculty from Stony Brook University’s College of Arts and Sciences honoured with the rank of Distinguished Professor by the State University of New York Board of Trustees.

Howardena Pindell, Department of Art, brings a powerful voice for social justice to her pioneering conceptual art. She utilizes gridded, serialized imagery along with surface texture throughout her work, powerfully addressing social issues of homelessness, AIDS, war, genocide, sexism, xenophobia, and apartheid. In 1967 Dr. Pindell was the first appointed female African-American curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). In 1972 she co-founded the A.I.R. Gallery, the first artist-directed gallery for female artists in the United States. Dr. Pindell’s work has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, MOMA, the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and the Whitney Museum of Art. She has received the top awards in her field: a Guggenheim Fellowship (1987), the Most Distinguished Body of Work or Performance Award from the College Art Association (1990), the Distinguished Contribution to the Profession Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art (1996), and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. She is considered to be one of the most significant artists of the second half of the 20th century.

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Image: portrait of Howardena Pindell

Photography: Katherine McMahon