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Dartmouth Artist Named Guggenheim Fellow

Enrico Riley ’95, senior lecturer in studio art, has been awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The award supports Riley’s work in painting.

Enrico Riley ´95

Riley works primarily in oil on canvas or linen stretched over wood panels, and his paintings and drawings deal with pattern, repetition, shape, and perception.

 “I’m excited by the opportunities presented with this award,” says Riley. “I plan to spend a significant amount of time working in my studio, and I’ll undertake more ambitious paintings.” Riley is also the area head of painting and drawing in the studio art department.

Riley says that his work in the studio will be informed by travel to Oxford University, the U.S. Southwest, and British Columbia, Canada. In England, he will study medieval illuminated prayer books, and in the U.S. Southwest, he will study Native North American vision quest paintings.

According to the Guggenheim Foundation, fellows “are appointed on the basis of stellar achievement in the past and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment.” The Guggenheim Fellowship program provides support so Fellows can work with as much creative freedom as possible. The 2008 fellowship winners include 190 artists, scholars, and scientists selected from more than 2,600 applicants for awards totaling $8.2 million.

After receiving his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth, where he majored in visual studies, Riley earned an M.F.A. in painting from Yale University. He has twice been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vt., and his paintings and drawings have been included in solo exhibitions at the Pageant Gallery in Philadelphia, Pa., the Karl Drerup Art Gallery in Plymouth, N.H., and elsewhere. In 2004, he  received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize for his painting Giant Steps, which was placed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.

“Enrico’s artistry embodies his creative and scholarly energy,” says Dartmouth Dean of the Faculty Carol Folt. “I’m pleased that he has been recognized for his talent, which he shares with his students and our community regularly.”

Since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has granted more than $265 million in fellowships to more than 16,500 individuals. Recent Dartmouth recipients include: Hany Farid (computer science, 2006), Linda Fowler (government, 2005), Ronald Green (religion and Ethics Institute, 2005), Larry Polansky (music, 2004), Susan Jane Walp (studio art, 2004), Douglas Irwin (economics, 2002), and Bruce Nelson (history, 2002).

By SUSAN KNAPP

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