Roland Ginzel named to District 27 'Distinguished Alumni'

[April 23, 2013]  Roland Ginzel is widely recognized as a pioneer abstract artist. Throughout his career, he established himself as an important artist, teacher and organizer of art exhibitions and organizations in Chicago.

After graduating from eighth grade at Central School in 1935, and then from Lincoln High School and Lincoln College, Ginzel received a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. He later earned a master's degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa. He received a Fulbright Award and spent a year in Rome doing postgraduate work.

Ginzel has taught at the University of Chicago, Rockford College, the University of Illinois Chicago, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Colorado College, in New York at the Parsons School of Design and at Columbia University. He has been honored as Professor Emeritus by the University of Illinois Chicago and was awarded an honorary doctorate at Lincoln College.

A lifetime professional artist, Ginzel has exhibited his work throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. He is known for his unique brand of abstract painting using colors, lines and patterns of shapes dispersed about the picture plane. His long-term dedication to abstraction makes him one of the most singular and individualistic figures in the spectrum of postwar Chicago art.