The 2017 Scholastic Art Awards: Wisconsin Exhibition

The Milwaukee Art Museum has had the honor of hosting the Scholastic Art Awards for the Wisconsin region for over forty years. Since the first competition in 1976, students in grades 7-12 from across Wisconsin have annually submitted works to be judged by an esteemed panel of art educators, artists, and museum professionals. The competition culminates in an exhibition of the best works of Wisconsin’s most talented young artists. This year, more than three hundred artworks were selected from over three thousand entries. Artwork is submitted in the categories of Architecture and Industrial Design, Ceramics and Glass, Comic Art, Design, Digital Art, Drawing and Illustration, Editorial Cartoon, Fashion, Film and Animation, Jewelry, Mixed Media, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, and Video Games, and as Art Portfolios.

The Scholastic Art Awards program has been acknowledging excellence in the visual arts and encouraging the artistic endeavors of young people throughout the United States for over ninety years. The Silver Key Award denotes statewide recognition. Artworks receiving a Gold Key Award go on to compete for Silver and Gold Medals at the national level, with entries from more than seventy-five other competitions throughout the United States. Many award winners go on to achieve distinction in the fields of fine arts, applied arts, and design, often crediting their success to the early recognition they received as participants in the Scholastic Art Awards. A number of artists represented in the Museum’s Collection were at one time Scholastic Award recipients, including Richard Avedon, Harry Bertoia, Nancy Burkert, Red Grooms, Richard Haas, Robert Indiana, David Lenz, Philip Pearlstein, David Salle, Cy Twombly, Tom Uttech, Andy Warhol, and John Wilde. Robert Henri and John Sloan were also two of the first Scholastic Art Awards judges.