MSU’s Campbell receives $20,000 MMA artist fellowship

Critz Campbell (Photo by Blake McCollum)

JACKSON, Miss.—The Mississippi Museum of Art is announcing a ��Ƶ faculty member as this year’s recipient of the Jane Crater Hiatt Artist Fellowship. The $20,000 grant is being awarded to Associate Professor of Sculpture Critz Campbell of West Point, whose artwork will be featured June 29-Aug. 11 in the museum’s 2019 Mississippi Invitational in Jackson. His achievement will be recognized during a 6-8 p.m. reception for all Invitational artists on June 27.

“Landscape Memory 2” by MSU Associate Professor of Sculpture Critz Campbell (Photo submitted)

MSU Associate Professor of Photography Dominic Lippillo of Starkville also is among artists selected for inclusion in the Mississippi Invitational exhibition.

Administered through the museum, the Jane Crater Hiatt Artist Fellowship provides a study-and-travel scholarship to support an individual artist in the development and creation of art over a two-year period. Campbell was selected from a group of artists whose work was included in the Mississippi Invitational.

The fellowship recipient is determined by a panel of jurors and is required to donate one original piece, created during the grant period, to the museum’s permanent collection. Artists who apply must demonstrate how the grant award could influence the development and direction of their work. Artists may use the funds for study, project development, supplies and equipment, research and travel.

“The idea for this fellowship grew from my years of listening to artists and learning what a difference mid-career travel and study can make in an artist’s vision, skill and scope,” Hiatt said. “I wanted to foster that and enhance the Mississippi Museum of Art’s relationship with artists living in the state.”

Campbell earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1990 and was designated a post-graduate exchange student at the Arco Centro de Communicao Visual in Lisbon, Portugal. He followed that assignment with two years as a CORE student at Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina, and then another two years studying furniture design at Parnham College in the United Kingdom. His work has been featured in “Inside Design Now” at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York; “Furniture Future Tense” at the De Cordoba Museum, in Lincoln, Massachusetts; the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York; and “Seven Days—Seven Nights” in the LIMN Gallery of San Francisco. Campbell also has won awards from the Mississippi Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.

With the Hiatt Artist Fellowship funds, Campbell plans to travel to North Adams, Massachusetts; New York, New York; Barjac, France; and Barcelona and Bilbao, Spain to study and reflect upon the works of German painter and sculptor Anslem Kiefer, who has influenced Campbell’s work since his freshman year of college.

Campbell said he anticipates that this focused investigation of Kiefer’s interpretation of Germany’s troubled history will inform and invigorate his own efforts to contribute to the expanding artistic narrative about Mississippi’s tumultuous past.

“The fellowship is far more than the opportunity to research and reflect as an artist; it is a vehicle of encouragement and support for each of the Invitational participants,” Campbell said. “Being a part of the creative fabric of Mississippi is what I care about most. Receiving this level of affirmation and support from the Mississippi Museum of Art and Mrs. Hiatt is truly inspiring.”

“I am anxious to see how my travel and reflection on the work of Anslem Kiefer impacts my work, and I am honored that the museum will bring one of these new works into its collection,” he said.

On June 28 at 11 a.m. in the MMA’s Yates Community Room, Invitational guest curator Kimberli Gant will be joined by Hiatt, Campbell and 2016 fellow Philip Jackson for a panel discussion moderated by Roger Ward, the museum’s chief curator.

Previous Fellows include Carolyn Busenlener (2014), Evert Witte (2011), Lee Renninger (2009), Norma S. Bourdeaux (2007) and Kevin Turner (2005).

The 2019 Mississippi Invitational exhibition and its programming are free and open to the public.

Part of the College of Architecture, Art and Design, MSU’s Department of Art is the longtime home of the state’s largest undergraduate studio art program. For more on the college and department, visit .

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at .

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