User:Bklynsag668/Shirley Woodson

Early life and education[edit]
Born in 1936 in Pulaski, Tennessee, Woodson has lived in Detroit since she was three months old, when her parents - Claude E. Woodson and Celia Trotter Woodson , moved their family of four. In seventh grade, she was selected to participate in a weekly special arts training at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where she would go on to take classes each Saturday, through high school. "It was sort of my most favorite place to be. Whenever I left home, I wanted to go to the museum," Woodson recalls in the 2021 Kresge Foundation Eminent Artist monograph.

She earned her B.F.A. degree from Wayne State University in 1958 and her M.A. from there in 1966. Between earning her B.F.A. and M.A., Woodson did graduate work at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1960) and pursued independent study in Rome, Paris, and Stockholm (1962).

Awards[edit]
Woodson's most recent honor was in 2021, when she was named the Kresge Eminent Artist of 2021. Administered by the College for Creative Studies, this award honors one Detroit artist each year for professional achievements, cultural contributions, and commitment to the local arts community. She received the DIA Alain Locke Award in 1998 and the Delta Sigma Theta sorority Lillian Benbow Award, among other awards.

Woodson is also the recipient of the Detroit Council or the Arts and the New Initiatives for the Arts Exhibition Grant, NCA Award for Artistic Excellence (1977); World Who's Who of Women, 1978; Who's Who in American Art, 1977-78; Award for Artistic Excellence, National Conference of Artists, 1977; Who's Who Among Black Americans, 1977 ; a prestigious MacDowell Fellowship in 1966. 2nd Prize, watercolor, Michigan State Fair, 1966; Purchase Prize, print and drawing exhibit, Dulin Gallery of Art, Knoxville, TN, 1965; 1st Prize, painting, Detroit Art Teachers Exhibition, 1965; 2nd Prize, painting, Detroit Art Teachers Exhibition, 1964.

Medium and Style[edit]
Shirley Woodson's medium is Painting; her bold strokes, vivid color choices and the suggestion of figurative collage create movement on her canvas. Along with the placement of the forms and figures, her work demonstrates the activity, the twists and turns of Black life. It's this stylistic approach and palette of Woodson that captures the spirited manner of Futurists and echoes her earlier abstract style.

In the Artist's Words[edit]
"To communicate the essential concept of Black unity through the placement of overlays of groups of figures in motion and counter motion with emphasis on the consistent variables within the group."