The Graduate Archive

For the past seventy-five years the School of Art and Art History has collected thousands of artworks by artists attending the School's graduate studio programs. Each graduate student was required to leave behind a work they completed during their graduate studies here at the University of Iowa. The collection contains over 6,000 paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures and other art objects. The collection is unique in the country and provides a critical glimpse of academic American art over much of the last century.

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SUSAN COLEMAN
Light Breather, Oil on canvas, 40" x 36", 1987

Susan Coleman was born in eastern Missouri, along the banks of the great Mississippi River. She received her BFA in drawing from Webster College, in St. Louis, and her MA (drawing) and MFA (painting) from the University of Iowa. Susan has shown widely in numerous venues throughout the Midwest and Eastern United States. Her work focuses primarily on landscape themes encountered in the local environment.

Susan has taught at the University of Northern Iowa, Kirkwood Community College (Iowa City Campus), as a visitor at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, and most recently at Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa, where she has served as Gallery Coordinator and Lecturer for the Art Department since February 2000.

In her own words:

The search for meaning is at the heart of my interest in landscape. Hope is rekindled by the creative spirit I see revealed in nature and the beauty of this world; rivers that continue to flow, and days that continue to dawn. Drawing from nature helps me recognize the sacred in the commonplace, something I'd prefer not to take for granted.

Despite its long history in western art, I feel that the subject of landscape can serve as a fresh and relevant path for interpreting the human condition. Landscape can make reference to a larger journey.

Susan Coleman's website