Vance Kirkland
American, 1904 - 1981
Person TypeIndividual
BiographyVance Hall Kirkland (1904 - 1981) was active/lived in Colorado, Kansas, Ohio. Vance Kirkland is known for Abstraction, modernist-leaning landscape, mural painting. Born in Convoy, Ohio, November 1904 and died in Denver, Colorado, May 1981, (age 76); Vance Hall Kirkland painted the last 52 years of his 54-year career in Denver. Museums and the press have variously referred to him as the "Father of Modern Colorado Painting", "Dean of Colorado Artists" and "Colorado's pre-eminent artist." He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1928. He was the founding Director of the School of Art at the University of Denver (1929-32, 1946-69), and ran the Kirkland School of Art in Denver (1932-46). Because of his academic pursuits, he was able to paint exactly as he wanted, without financial pressure. This was particularly helpful when he discontinued his realist and surrealist watercolors halfway through his career, after major successes, and decided to change to oil abstraction in 1953.