William Dunlap
About the Artist
William Dunlap has distinguished himself as an artist, arts commentator and educator, during a career that has spanned more than three decades. His paintings, sculpture and constructions are included in prestigious collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Lauren Rogers Museum, Mobil Corporation, Riggs Bank, IBM Corporation, Federal Express, The Equitable Collection, Rogers Ogden Collection, Arkansas Art Center, the United States State Department, and United States Embassies throughout the world. He has had solo exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Academy of Science, Aspen Museum of Art, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Museum of Western Virginia, Albany Museum of Art, Cheekwood Fine Arts Center, Mint Museum of Art, Mississippi Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, to name but a few.
Panorama of the American Landscape, his fourteen panel, 112 feet long cyclorama painting depicting a contemporary view of the Shenandoah Valley in summer and the Antietam battlefield in winter, was commissioned for the Rotunda Gallery at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1985, but since its debut has been shown in nearly a dozen American museums and art centers, its most recent venue being the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA. In addition, Reconstructed Recollections and In the Spirit of the Land are also exhibitions of Mr. Dunlap’s work that continue major tours.
A Winding River: Contemporary Painting from Vietnam, an exhibition he co-curated, opened at the Meridian International Center in Washington, DC during the 1997-98 season and traveled to several American museums. He also co-curated a counterpoint to that project: Outward Bound: American Art on the Brink of the 21st Century which opened at the Meridian International Center as well and is traveling throughout Southeast Asia. Currently, he is working on another exhibition to open at the Meridian International Center, that of contemporary Cuban painting.
Honored in his field, Mr. Dunlap has received awards and fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Foundation for study and travel in Southeast Asia, Warhol Foundation, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art/RJR Nabisco Visual Artists Award, and the Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He is an inspired speaker and has lectured on art related subjects at colleges, universities, institutions and professional conferences. He serves as arts commentator on WETA-TV’s cultural round table show, “Around Town.” William Dunlap has an M.F.A. from the University of Mississippi, and taught at Appalachian State University in North Carolina (1970-79) and Memphis State University (1979-80.) He currently maintains studios in McLean, Virginia; Mathiston, Mississippi and Coral Gables, Florida.
