Resume: Leo Twiggs

Leo Twiggs was born in St. Stephen, South Carolina. He received his BA Summa Cum Laude from Claflin University, later studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and received his MA from New York University where he studied with Hale Woodruff, the acclaimed African American painter and muralist. He received his doctorate in Art Education from the University of Georgia. As Professor of Art at South Carolina State University, he developed the Art Department and I.P. Stanback Museum. Twiggs was named Professor Emeritus in 2000.

In 1981, he received the Verner Award (Governor’s trophy) for outstanding individual contributions to the arts in South Carolina, the first visual artist so honored.

Twiggs’ paintings are done in a unique, innovative batik technique that he developed after several years of experimenting with the traditional medium. He has had over 60 one-man shows and his work has received international recognition, with exhibits at the Studio Museum and the American Crafts Museum in New York and in U. S. Embassies in Rome, Dakar and Togoland among others. His work has been widely published in art textbooks and featured in several television documentaries. In 2002, he was selected to design an ornament for the White House Christmas tree.

Selected Listings:
Myths and Metaphors: The Art of Leo Twiggs: Georgia Museum of Art,
University of Georgia, 2004.
Ragan, Rosalind: Art Talk, Glencoe Publishing, 1994.
Ragan, Rosalind: Art Connections Glencoe Publishing, 1997.
Catalogue: Art in the American Embassy, Dacca.
Who's Who in American Art, 1986-Present.
Ebony Magazine, September 1988.
Lewis, Samella: Art: African American, New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1991
The St. James Guide to Black Artists: Thomas Riggs, Ed.
New York: St. James Press, 1997

Selected Exhibitions:
Studio Museum: New York
Schenectady Museum: New York
Herbert F. Johnson Museum: Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Harrison Museum: Roanoke, VA.
Palazzo Venezia: Rome, Italy
Hampton III Gallery: Greenville, SC.
Art in U.S. Embassies: Dakar, Togo land, Rome, Sierra Leone
Uncommon Beauty in Common Objects: African American Crafts, A Traveling Exhibition - American Craft Museum, New York; Dallas Tex.; Oakland, Calif.; Atlanta, GA.; Washington, DC.
The Gibbes Museum, Charleston, S.C. (Spoleto USA) 2004
The Georgia Museum of Art University of Georgia
The Greenville Museum of Art: Greenville, S. C.
The Milton Rhodes Gallery: Winston Salem, N. C.