The South Carolina Arts Commission Board announces the 2012 Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Awards for the Arts, the highest honor the state presents in the arts. Established in 1972, the annual awards recognize outstanding achievement and contributions to the arts in South Carolina.
This year’s recipients are:
Lifetime Achievement, Dr. Lillian Quackenbush, Columbia
Individual Artist, Robert Ariail, Camden
Individual, Sam Wang, Clemson
Arts in Education, R. Scot Hockman, Columbia
Business/Foundation, The Self Family Foundation, Greenwood
Organization, The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, with special recognition for Mark Sloan, Charleston
"It’s one of the highlights of our year at the South Carolina Arts Commission when we recognize these outstanding members of our statewide community for their contributions to the arts,” said S.C. Arts Commission Board Chairman Dr. Sarah Lynn Hayes. “Our arts community is broad, deep and diverse, and this year’s lineup of honorees is a wonderful illustration of that. We salute and thank them for being standard-bearers for the arts.”
Sam Wang was born in Beijing, China, and grew up in Hong Kong. He came to the US after high school and attended Augustana College in Sioux Falls. After receiving an MFA in photography with a minor in painting from the University of Iowa, he joined the faculty at the School of Architecture at Clemson University in 1966. He taught graduate and undergraduate photography and “art with computer” and helped initiate the MFA-DPA program that prepared students for the animation industry. He retired from Clemson in 2006 as an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Art.
Sam's art included many photographic techniques and processes, including photo-silkscreen, platinum/palladium, gum bichromate, pinhole and “zoneplate”, and digital imaging. In addition to Clemson, he has taught workshops in photography and digital imaging at Penland School of Crafts, University of Oregon, Notre Dame University, Appalachian Environmental Arts Center, Nanjing Arts Institute, among others. His work is in the collection of numerous museums and educational institutions nationally. http://palmettoportraits.musc.edu/wang_sam.html
