Awards
2005 Distinguished Teaching of Art Award
Lloyd Menard, University of South Dakota
Lloyd Menard
Lloyd Menard is a legendary teacher and mentor in art education who has made an enormous impact on printmaking. For more than three decades, he has tirelessly promoted contemporary and experimental printmaking and has inspired countless students.
Menard has spent nearly his entire career teaching at the University of South Dakota, with a one-year visiting professorship at the University of Wisconsin. In a small western town, he has created one of the most influential print programs and national workshops in the country. His dedication to the craft and concepts of print media and his love of the close-knit community of printmaking have compelled his students to learn. A former student describes his generosity: “The strength he demonstrated in showing his frailty and his determination not to be beaten was remarkable and inspiring. I will remember for the rest of my days the character that Lloyd demonstrated to me. Whenever I feel overwhelmed as an artist or a teacher, I just need to remind myself of that time [as a student] and I know I can overcome.”
Menard brought the larger world of art to his students in remote Vermillion, South Dakota, by bringing in literally hundreds of visiting artists. A fellow artist writes, “Through his years at an isolated university, Lloyd tirelessly dreamed up excuses to bring in professional artists as visitors. There were panel discussions by the gross, directed by Lloyd’s trenchant humor and frankness, running the problems of the artist’s world by the native sons and daughters who were learning their profession far from that world’s center.”
His summer workshops (dubbed the Frogman’s Print and Papermaking Workshop, a reference to his nickname Froggie) created a festive and fervent printmaking community. These were originally held in the Black Hills; they later moved to Vermillion.
In 2006 Menard will celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his homegrown South Dakota print workshop, which has grown from ragtag roots to be one of the most highly regarded and influential printmaking workshops in the country. He has a knack for gathering brilliant and generous teachers and artists to create an ideal environment for learning, in both his summer workshops and his enduring Visiting Artist in Print program.
Menard has also enjoyed an illustrious career as an artist, represented by galleries in Chicago, San Francisco, Omaha, Kansas City, and other cities. His work is strong, and his exhibition and curatorial record is impressive. He has had more than fifty solo shows and been in more than ninety juried exhibitions; his work is in over one hundred public and corporate collections. He has been a fixture at printmaking conferences for decades, organizing panels, portfolio exchanges, and exhibitions. He is an inestimable resource in the ongoing dialogue on contemporary printmaking, to which he has continually contributed.
Menard’s dedication to the success of his students is untiring, and his caring extends beyond the walls of the classroom or studio. His students know that his desire that they succeed in the arts is founded on his personal belief in each of them. The noted printmaker Warrington Colescott describes Menard’s students in this way: “They tend to be respected artists, professionals, and scholars who at a critical time in their development fell under the creative guidance of a sturdy, unorthodox, brilliant, and sensitive artist, teacher, and administrator who, most of all, was a gifted mentor to those young adults who had talent, energy, and perception to follow where the mentor led.”
Committee: Christine M. Waters, University of Michigan, Flint, chair; Leslie King-Hammond, Maryland Institute of Art; Michael Krueger, University of Kansas; Wayne Potratz, University of Minnesota; and Gina Werfel, University of California, Davis.
