The William Stewart Award in Visual Arts
Emeritus Professor William R. Stewart established a scholarship to recognize talented, dedicated graduate or undergraduate students in the visual arts at SUNY Brockport. Mr. Stewart was a faculty member at the college from 1966 to 1999.
He is a graduate of The State University College at Buffalo, and he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree at Ohio University. During the 1991-92 academic year, he served as chair of the Department of Art.
Mr. Stewart creates art that draws on ideas obtained from toys, games, or new and primitive artifacts to create a framework that becomes the image. His work investigates how intuition informs technique. He works in clay and other dimensional modalities.
His work has been featured in one-person shows, including a major retrospective at Main Street Arts, Clifton Springs, in 2017; at SUNY Brockport in 2001; the Oxford Gallery, Rochester, 1996; the Chautauqua Institution, 1982; and the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery in 1974. Exhibits across the country, such as the Contemporary New York Crafts Exhibit at the New York State Museum in Albany; an annual invitational exhibit at San Jose State University, Santa Barbara, CA; and the Great Lakes Juried Ceramic Exhibition, Chicago, have included his pieces.
Mr. Stewart himself has received numerous awards, including the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the State University of New York, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Ohio University, the Lillian Fairchild Award from the University of Rochester, and the First Prize in Sculpture at an Annual National Exhibition by the Art association of Newport, RI.
He has served as a guest instructor or artist-in-residence at the Penland (NC) School of Crafts, Art Park, Lewiston, NY; SUNY Fredonia, and the Rochester City School District.
Qualified applicants for the William Stewart Award in Visual Arts are either undergraduate or graduate students enrolled in the Department of Art. Applicants must demonstrate integrity, collegiality, enthusiasm, and dedication in the visual arts as determined by the Department of Art faculty.