Kevin Cole received his B.S. from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, M.A. in Art Education from University of Illinois at Urbana and a M.F.A. from Northern Illinois University where he was a Rhoden Smith Scholar. Within the last 32 years, he has received 27 grants and fellowships, 66 awards in art and 51 teaching awards.
On February 1, 2022, he received a Proclamation from the City of South Fulton proclaiming February 1, 2022, Kevin Cole Day. In December 2020, Mr. Cole received the 2020 Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities in the State of Georgia and the 2019 Nexus Award from the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta. In April 2020, Mr. Cole received the Art Aspiration Award by the National Society Incorporation for his dedication to students’ achievements and the 2020 Trail Blazer Award from Salem Bible Church, in Atlanta, GA. In July 2021, he received the Working Artist Fellowship from Museum of Contemporary Art in Georgia.
His artwork has been featured in more than 490 exhibitions and 4000 public, private and corporate collections throughout the United States and abroad.
Public collections include the new National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, The Georgia Museum, Athens, GA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA.; William Jefferson Clinton Library, Little Rock, AR; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA.; The David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland at College Park; Dayton Institute of Art, Dayton, OH; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA ; The Georgia Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, GA; Corcoran Museum in Washington, D.C.; Tampa Museum , Tampa, FL; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Corporate collections include Bank of America, Charlotte, NC; IBM, New York, NY; King and Spaulding Law Firm, Atlanta, GA. Private collectors include Michael Jordan and John and Monica Pearson of Atlanta, GA. Cole has also created more than 45 public artworks, including the Coca-Cola Centennial Olympic Mural for the 1996 Olympic Games. His artwork has been featured in more than 125 publications, The Guardian Magazine in Paris, France in Scholastic Art with Dale Chihuly, The Washington Post, Sculpture Magazine, The Union Tribune in San Diego, CA, The Atlanta Journal Constitution and most recently Forbes Magazine.
© Kevin Cole 2023. All rights reserved
