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Olen Bryant, one of Tennessee’s most renowned and well-loved
artists, was awarded the Distinguished Artist Award
during the 2007 Governor’s Awards for the Arts. During that
same year a major retrospective exhibit of his work was held
at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center in Clarksville,
Tenn.
A graduate of Murray State University in Murray, Ky., in 1950
and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield, Mich., in
1954, he also studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and the
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, and
the Instiuto Allende in San Miguel, Mexico.
He taught art from 1958 to 1991 spending 27 years as professor
of Art and Chair of the Sculpture and Ceramics Department at
Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn. Bryant has
had numerous solo exhibitions and many pieces in public
collections including Austin Peay State University campus, the
Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tenn., and
the Tennessee State Museum of Art and Cheekwood Museum
of Art.
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Artist Statement
“I feel that the artist must work with the conviction, the sincerity
and the understanding of which he is capable. Out of his own
being, his own environment and his own experiences, he will
find a way that is best for his own expression. I am very responsive
and interested in natural materials and still deal with
wood, clay and stone.”
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