UF painting professor wins artistic achievement award

November 27, 2006

The 2006 Southeastern College Art Conference award for outstanding artistic achievement has been given to Richard Heipp, professor in the University of Florida’s School of Art and Art History.

Heipp is a nationally recognized painter who incorporates various visual elements – painting, photography, relief sculptures – in his public works. He has taught painting at the University of Florida for more than 20 years. Heipp has been featured in 25 solo exhibitions and 100 group exhibitions throughout the United States.

Heipp recently was commissioned to complete an Art in Public Places project for the newly renovated George Smathers Library at UF. His public artwork has included paintings for the state of Florida’s Fire College, the Schmidt Center for the Arts and Humanities at Florida Atlantic University, the State Veterans Nursing Home in Daytona Beach, and the city of Tampa for the for entry ramp to the Tampa Museum of Art.

His many grants and awards have included a Southern Arts Federation, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in painting and four state of Florida Individual Artists Fellowships. He has received more than 15 university sponsored research awards in addition to a College of Fine Arts Research Foundation Professorship. His teaching also has been recognized through a Teacher of the Year Award for the College of Fine Arts.

The Southeastern College Art Conference represents 12 states in the Southeast, but its membership spans the United States and abroad. The conference fosters ongoing dialog about pertinent creative, scholarly and educational issues between teachers and administrators in universities, colleges, community colleges, professional art schools and museums.