Prominent Brooklyn Artist Archie Rand Joins Brooklyn College as Presidential Professor

Presidential Professor Archie Rand

Renowned painter Archie Rand, who has had more than one hundred solo exhibitions, has been appointed as the Presidential Professor of Art at Brooklyn College.
Rand is regarded as both a technical and an iconographic innovator. He has done significant work as a painter, muralist, graphic artist, illustrator, and writer. His work is displayed in major museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

 “Brooklyn College is pleased to welcome such an accomplished artist and educator as Archie Rand,” said President Christoph M. Kimmich. “Rand is the latest in a long line of distinguished artists who have taught at the College and his appointment will continue the Art Department’s tradition of excellence.”
Prior to joining the faculty at Brooklyn College, Rand was one of the principal architects of the Department of Visual Arts at Columbia University, now considered one of the most prestigious art programs in the country. Rand served as the department’s chairperson and was honored with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The Torah Ark at B'Nai Yosef Synagogue, part of a house of worship near campus that Rand has filled with distinctive murals

 The Brooklyn-born Rand received his bachelor of fine arts in cinegraphics from Pratt Institute. Among his numerous honors is a 1999 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. His two current solo exhibitions in New York are Iconoclast at the Yeshiva University Museum until October and The Nineteen at the Hebrew Union College Museum. He has additional solo exhibitions scheduled for New York, Miami, and throughout Europe during the coming year.

 In joining Brooklyn College, Rand follows some of the most noted artists of the twentieth century, including painters Mark Rothko, Jimmy Ernst, Ad Reinhardt, and Clyfford Still; photographers Berenice Abbott and Walter Rosenblum; sculptor Louise Bourgeois; and the father of contemporary etching, Stanley William Hayter.

 More recently, the Art Department has been the home of Philip Pearlstein, Lennart Anderson, Lois Dodd, William T. Williams, Allan D’Arcangelo, and Lee Bontecou.