Richard Callner was an American artist and teacher. Motifs in his paintings, prints, etchings, and sculpture throughout his prolific half-century career span Hebrew, Greek and Tantric mythology and display an extraordinary mastery of color, line and pattern. Callner's landscape and interior paintings reflect his visits to Italy, Yugoslavia, Spain, Russia, Japan, Turkey and the Hudson Valley. Callner's works reside in many private and public collections in St. Petersburg, Russia; Istanbul; Pristina, Yugoslavia; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the New York Public Library; Yale University Art Gallery; Cincinnati Art Museum; Worcester Art Museum; the University Art Museum, SUNY; and the Albany Institute of History & Art. Callner began his long and distinguished teaching career in 1952 at Purdue University. Callner later taught at Temple University's Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and was founding director of Temple University's Tyler Art School in Rome, Italy from 1966-1972. Callner came to SUNY Albany to begin the MFA program, where he taught until retirement in 1993. He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin, a certificate from the Academie Julian in Paris, and his MFA from Columbia University. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and traveled to Cambridge, England and France in addition to a Fulbright Grant and was the first American artist to lecture at the Hermitage in the former USSR.
Serdar Arat is a visual artist of Turkish origin, living and working in NY since 1980, with nearly 40 one person and 60 group exhibitions primarily in New York City and İstanbul. Many reviews and articles about his work include half a dozen in The New York Times, a monograph by Bill Arning, a documentary film by Ken Calhoun among others. Recepient of Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, his works are in many public and private collections mainly in the USA and Türkiye. He has also served as a faculty member and gallery director/curator untill 2018, and currently continues to present lectures at the intersection of art and issues of interest.
Images from top: Hudson River, North of Catskill, Richard Callner (1927–2007), 1987, watercolor on paper. Albany Institute of History & Art Purchase, 1998.15. Red Fields, East of Madrid, Richard Callner (1927–2007), 1988, watercolor and gouache on paper. Albany Institute of History & Art Purchase,1988.23.1.