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Ruth Simmons to Deliver Keynote Address at Rhode Island School of Design’s 2010 Commencement

06/05/2010

PROVIDENCE, RI – On Saturday, June 5 at 10am, graduating students from Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] will receive their diplomas during RISD’s 2010 Commencement celebration.  The 461 undergraduates and 182 graduate students will gather at the First Baptist Church at 75 North Main Street, where the festive processional will work its way down the Providence riverwalk.

The annual RISD Commencement ceremony is held outdoors on South Water Street at Power Street, at the southern end of RISD’s east side campus.  The festive event is a true representation of the creative spirit at RISD, with students reimagining their traditional caps and gowns in playful and highly individualized ways. Some even forego the standard-issue caps and gowns for custom-made costumes, informal beachwear, elaborate native dress or other creative ensembles.

As part of the ceremony, RISD also confers honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees on exceptional individuals who have made groundbreaking contributions to the worlds of art, design and education.  This year four guests will participate in the ceremony and accept honorary degrees: illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast, best known for the commercial design work produced by his Push Pin Studios; philanthropist Paula Granoff, a long-time patron and advocate of the arts in Rhode Island and beyond; graphic/comics artist Art Spiegelman, whose landmark book MAUS led to the growing popularity of graphic novels; and educational leader and advocate Ruth J. Simmons, current president of Brown University, who will deliver the keynote address. 

At the ceremony, the Alumni Association will also present its Award for Artistic Achievement to Deidre Scherer BFA ’67/Art Education, a gifted fine artist who “paints” by sewing elaborate fabric portraits focused on aging and mortality.

Graduating students will mount a series of exhibitions leading up to Commencement, including the Senior Invitational Exhibition at Woods-Gerry Gallery, the RISD Graduate Student Exhibition at the Rhode Island Convention Center, a graduate student show at Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery and the Senior Film/Animation/Video Festival at the RISD Auditorium.  Details about each can be found at www.risd.edu/exhibitions.cfm

Brief bios on each of this year’s honorary degree recipients can be found below.  For more information on RISD’s 2010 Commencement, visit www.risd.edu/commencement. 

Seymour Chwast

Widely known for his beautifully executed commercial work, Seymour Chwast has influenced countless designers and illustrators throughout the world. He is a co-founder of Push Pin Studios, which developed a smart, humorous visual language that has revolutionized the way people look at design. Chwast’s award-winning posters, books, ads, designs and illustrations for magazines have appeared in every major design publication and such mainstream outlets as Time, Life, The New York Times Magazine, Forbes, New York and The Atlantic, earning him a spot in the Art Directors Hall of Fame. His poster for the PBS series I, Claudius became both a popular icon and a classical masterwork, and is among his work included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Library of Congress, among others. In addition to his work at Push Pin, Chwast continues to teach at the Cooper Union School of Art, his alma mater.

Paula Granoff

A native Rhode Islander, Paula Granoff is a patron of the arts and a long-time collector who has worked to strengthen the RISD Museum of Art over the past three decades. She and her husband Leonard have either given or supported the acquisition of more than 100 works of art, ranging from three Aaron Douglas mural studies to Japanese prints and contemporary paintings, prints and drawings. They also established an endowed fund for the purchase of contemporary drawings, which has enabled the Museum to acquire works by such major artists as Marlene Dumas, Laura Owens [RISD BFA ’92], Lari Pittman, Shahzia Sikander [RISD MFA ’95] and many others. The Granoffs’ support of emerging artists is legendary, as is their willingness to fund many of the Museum’s most significant exhibitions. In the 1990s, they donated $1.5 million for the renovation and maintenance of the Paula and Leonard Granoff Galleries for 20^th-century art, which are a favorite destination for Museum visitors. They also established the Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery in honor of her late father, also a well-known philanthropist in Rhode Island. Paula Granoff has been active on the Museum’s Fine Arts Committee for decades, served as a RISD trustee from 1986–2003 and is currently an honorary trustee and a member of the RISD Museum Board of Governors.

Ruth J. Simmons

Ruth J. Simmons is president of Brown University, where she is also a professor of comparative literature and Africana Studies. An articulate speaker and writer, she frequently presents on a wide range of educational and public policy issues, including institutional governance, foreign language study, diversity, liberal arts, science education, leadership and women in higher education. As a strong academic leader, Simmons believes in the power of education to transform lives.

Since coming to Brown in 2001, she has championed the university as a haven of reasoned debate with the responsibility to challenge students intellectually and prepare them to become informed, conscientious citizens. She graduated from Dillard University in New Orleans and completed her Ph.D. in Romance languages and literatures at Harvard.  In the late 1990s, Simmons served as president of Smith College. Her many accolades include the 2001 President’s Award from the United Negro College Fund, the 2002 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, and the 2004 Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal.

Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman is widely recognized for elevating the medium of comic books to an art form. Born in Stockholm, Sweden to Polish-Jewish refugees, he immigrated to the United States as a boy and started drawing comics professionally at age 16. In 1992, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his masterful Holocaust narrative MAUS – a precursor to today’s graphic novels that powerfully portrays Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. In 2004 Spiegelman, who lives in lower Manhattan and was profoundly moved by the events of 9/11, released In the Shadow of No Towers, a graphic novel about life in an era of terror. Time magazine named the artist one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People” in 2005 and The New York Times has summed up his career by noting: “to the comics world, Art Spiegelman is a Michelangelo and a Medici both – an influential artist who is also an impresario and an enabler of others.”

About Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has earned a worldwide reputation as the preeminent art and design college in the country. Today, with more than 26,000 alumni, the college enrolls approximately 1,900 undergraduates and 400 graduate students from the United States and almost 50 countries, offering degree programs in the fine arts, architecture, and design disciplines, and art education.  Academic programs include research and design initiatives, the exploration of art criticism and contemporary cultural concerns, as well as international exchange programs. Each year, RISD hosts prominent and accomplished artists, critics, and authors to its campus.  Included within the college is The RISD Museum of Art, which houses a world-class collection of art objects from Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and art of all periods from Asia, Europe and the Americas, as well as the latest in contemporary art.  For more information, visit www.risd.edu or our.risd.edu.