Associate Professor of Painting Joseph Wardwell is one of three Boston University (BU) alumni that has been awarded with the CFA’s Distinguished Alumni Award, “the most prestigious award conferred by the College of Fine Arts at Boston University,” according to BU’s website.
“In everyone’s life you just kind of move forward, and so it was a time to pause and be able to reflect and talk to some young BU students who are on their way up,” Wardwell told The Hoot about receiving the award and talking to current BU students. “It’s kind of funny to think about—I work with students everyday, but there are students [at BU] who are headed towards my field and are in a position where I once was and it’s interesting to connect with them in that way. I rarely think of myself as someone to look up to.”
Wardwell said that he has great hopes for Brandeis’ Fine Arts program and that it has “so much potential in the future.”
“I think the Fine Arts Department here is excellent and the faculty are some of the most amazing professionals around who are some of my colleagues,” said Wardwell to The Brandeis Hoot over a phone interview. “It’s kind of like a little jewel that not many people know about. Not many people come to Brandeis to study art but it’s an excellent place to do it. I hope that in the future, art is always a part of the four-year university setting. I think it’s unfortunate when it’s relegated to art schools.”
Wardwell received a BA in Art History and a BFA in Painting in 1996 from the University of Washington and then received an MFA in Painting from the BU College of Fine Arts in 1999, according to the Brandeis University website. He has been a professor of painting and drawing at Brandeis since 2001.
Wardwell said that one of his “greatest achievements” was the founding of the Brandeis-in-Siena program, a two-course summer program combining Studio Art and Art History in Siena, Italy, according to the Office of Study Abroad. He said that the creation of this program in addition to his Hello America: 40 Hits from the 50 states piece, was his proudest accomplishment. The Hello America piece, on view until 2022, is a large scale wall drawing commissioned for the new renovation at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA, according to Wardwell.
“It’s great to be acknowledged any time that you get to a point in your professional career where a place that you once were looks back at you and at your accomplishments and invites you back. It’s an incredible honor in that regard,” said Wardwell. “I still kind of feel like a young artist, so it’s kind of funny to be a distinguished alumni when I feel much more like a recent alumni, but that’s not the case. It gives you a moment to pause twenty years later.”
Wardwell’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln. He is represented by LaMontagne Gallery in Boston, according to his biography on BU’s distinguished alumni page.
