Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Celebrated painter Laylah Ali (MFA ’94) will receive the Dean’s Medal for outstanding contributions to the field of art from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. In all, seven outstanding alumni will be recognized during the school’s annual Awards for Distinction dinner April 6 for demonstrating creativity, innovation, leadership and vision in their respective fields.

Filmmaker Ericka Beckman (BFA ’74) and visual artist Ian Weaver (MFA ’08) are recipients of the inaugural Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award.

Four renowned illustrators have donated artworks to the D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library, part of Washington University Libraries’ Special Collections, in honor of celebrated alumnus and illustrator Jack Unruh, who died last year.

Segregation is no accident. Nearly five decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968, American cities remain racially, culturally, spatially and economically divided. In this Q&A, Catalina Freixas, assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, discusses St. Louis, segregation and the hidden histories that shape our urban landscape.

While President Trump’s proposed $970 million budget cuts in the arts and humanities account for less than one-tenth of a percent of savings in the administration’s $1.1 trillion federal budget plan, the effect could gut culture and diminish quality of life across the United States if not the world, say experts at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Kemper Art Museum is accepting proposals for the spring 2018 Teaching Gallery. The gallery is an exhibit space dedicated to exhibiting works from the museum with ties to university curricula. Proposals are due by May 12.

Pedro Pitarch has won the 2016-17 James Harrison Steedman Memorial Fellowship in Architecture. The $50,000 grant, which supports international travel for research, is one of the largest such architecture awards in the United States. Pitarch, who was chosen from a field of 100 applicants, will use the grant to explore the intersection of public and private spaces in cities across Europe, Asia and the United States.

In the last year, dozens of books by university faculty and alumni hit the shelves. Here we share just a small selection of the noteworthy tomes that are making an impact on literature, research and best-seller lists.

Rod Barnett, chair of the Master of Landscape Architecture program in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has received a $20,000 grant from the Whitaker Foundation to support the St. Louis Parks Project.

“Higher Ground: Honoring Washington Park Cemetery, Its People and Place” will open March 3 at the Sheldon Art Galleries. The exhibition includes works by artists Jennifer Colten, Denise Ward-Brown and Dail Chambers. All three will discuss their projects during a gallery talk April 7 and in a panel discussion at the Missouri History Museum May 24, among other events.