Moe Mitchell Artist, Professor, Global Citizen

Born June 30, 1935, in Highland Park, Illinois, Morris "Moe" Mitchell attended Lake Forest Academy and Lake Forest College in Illinois. He transferred to Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida in 1955 and upon his graduation in 1959 was invited to join the faculty of Ringling School as a fine arts professor. This began a 40-year academic career.

In 1974, Moe became the chairman of Ringling School's fine arts department and he held that position for nine years. Before beginning his duties as the head of fine arts, Moe attended The University of Tulsa in Oklahoma where he received his Master of Arts degree in printmaking, with a minor in drawing. While serving as fine arts chair at Ringling School, Moe was instrumental in designing new curricula including Collage Assemblage, Conceptual Drawing, Advanced Painting, Color and Design, Graphics Lab and Senior Seminar in Aesthetics, as well as introducting a multimedia course titled "Incredible Phenomena." He was instrumental in establishing Ringling School's Visiting Artist Program and was responsible for bringing to the school artists such as James Rosenquist and Duane Hansen Jimmy Ernst plus others.

In Sarasota, Moe's interests took him beyond the classroom and the studio. He worked on the development of art program, Sarasota's first Headstart and his involvement with young people enrolled in the ESAW Program at a local high school, resulted in scholarships for migrant workers' children. As president of the "Sarasota Society for Contemporary Art," he started a lecture program that helped give birth to a "Digital Artists Group" in Bradenton, Florida. In 1996, he helped serve as the "anchor" for a community arts festival in Bradenton by mounting an exhibition of his own works in a vacant building for the duration of the festival. He served as vice president of the Florida Artists Group from 1972 to 1983, has taught children's art classes at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and ran the summer program for three years at the renowned Hilton Leech Studio. As a visiting artist, Moe has lectured, taught, or served as guest curator at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi; The School of Visual Arts in New York City; The University of Tulsa in Oklahoma; The Atlanta Penitentiary and Parsons School of Design in New York City. He has lectured throughout Florida on the subject of painting, texture and the interpretation of nature in art. He has taught painting and drawing at Wildacres Summer Art Program in Little Switzerland, North Carolina, and continues to tutor students privately.

While at Ringling School, Moe was awarded several grants. With the grants he attended and participated in a "Symposium on Contemporary Issues in Painting" in New York City, lectured at The Putney School of Art in London,England and explored Italy's museums, galleries and architecture. Throughout his years as a professor of fine art, Moe continued to work in the studio, creating a vast body of work. His paintings dwell in more than 30 private and public collections and he has particpated in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Florida and in New York. Now retired from teaching, Moe is devoting himself full-time to his own work - painting, printmaking, collage and conceptual works that explore the human condition.

"My love for art and people and teaching has inspired me to continue to teach through my art. My work is issue-based. It deals with subjects ranging from child abuse to the environment to social injustice and the dwindling of world spirituality."