Juan Logan (born August 16, 1946) is an American artist from

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. His paintings, sculptures, and installations are reflective of his experiences of racial and institutional power structures in the South and prompt viewers to consider social responsibility.

Early life

Juan Logan was born in

, to John Louie Logan, a minister and founder of John Calvin Presbyterian Church, and Madge Sarah Jane Grier, an elementary school teacher. When his father became ill, the family moved from Nashville to his father's home town in

Marion, North Carolina Marion is a city in and the county seat of McDowell County, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1844, the city was named in honor of Brigadier General Francis Marion, the American Revolutionary War Hero whose talent in guerrilla warfare ...

in 1949. John Louie Logan died later that year. Madge Grier remarried in 1950, and four years later the family moved to her birthplace,

Belmont, North Carolina Belmont is a small suburban city in Gaston County, North Carolina, United States, located about west of uptown Charlotte and east of Gastonia. The population was 10,076 at the 2010 census. Once known as Garibaldi Station, it was named for th ...

. Juan and his family moved into a new house built by his grandfather James W.W. Grier and several other family members. Logan's interest in art began in 1960 while attending Reid High School, the black high school in Belmont at the time.

Education

Growing up in a black farming community was critical to Logan's ability to see and create "things". The process of making objects was very important to his stepfather, as well as his grandfather James William Washington Grier. The family took pride in finding innovative solutions for creating objects instead of purchasing them, and stressed the importance of self-sufficiency. After graduating high school in 1964, Logan attended

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

His hope was to major in science like his older brother John, who had majored in

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

. Logan began his academic career with the intention of focusing on biology with a specialization in microbiology. He came to realize that his interest was not in science, but in art. At the university, he was exposed to James A. Porter, James Wells, and

Lois Mailou Jones Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998) was an artist and educator. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum o ...

, who influenced his creative development. After a brief stay at Howard, Logan moved on to

Clark College Clark College is a public community college in Vancouver, Washington. With 11,500 students, Clark College is the largest institution of higher education in southwest Washington. Founded in 1933 as a private two-year junior college, Clark Colleg ...

(now Clark Atlanta University) to study art. Floyd Coleman was the chairman of the department, and was very supportive of Logan. "Floyd Coleman was the first artist I'd ever encountered who was really dealing with political issues in an in-your-face kind of way. His paintings provided me with the impetus to explore both social and political concerns." Logan later realized he could do this through the use of color, image, symbol and metaphor, elements which remain a critical part of his work. After leaving Clark, Logan joined the

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

in 1967 and served as a jet engine mechanic active in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. His military experience was crucial to shaping his exploration of American social and political constructs in his artwork. A number of his paintings, including ''I Am Black'' and ''Black American Dream'' from the late 60s and early 70s, responded to that experience. Logan's choice to use the language of abstraction in these and subsequent works provided him with an opportunity to explore ideas more broadly than

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

, in his opinion, provided. Logan received his MFA in 1998 from the

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the oldest art colleges in the U ...

, Mount Royal School in Baltimore, where the focus of his studies was painting and

mixed-media In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed. Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art incl ...

sculpture.

Career

In addition to creating his own work, Logan is the Conservation Manager at Vollis Simpson Whirligig Project, where he actively restored 31 large-scale sculptures created by artist Vollis Simpson for the city of

Wilson, North Carolina Wilson is a city in and the county seat of Wilson County, North Carolina, United States. Located approximately east of the capital city of Raleigh, it is served by the interchange of Interstate 95 and U.S. Route 264. Wilson had an estimated p ...

. He is a retired professor of studio art at the

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

. Logan was selected as one of the designers for the original iteration of the North Carolina Freedom Monument Project, a public park in Raleigh. He has had solo exhibitions including in New Orleans at the

Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is located in the Warehouse Arts District of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. Established in 1999, and in Stephen Goldring Hall at 925 Camp Street since 2003. The building The Ogden consists of two main buildin ...

; in Miami at N'Namdi Contemporary; in

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in the Un ...

at the

Weatherspoon Art Museum The Weatherspoon Art Museum is located at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is one of the largest collections of modern and contemporary art in the southeast with a focus on American art. Its programming includes fifteen or more e ...

; in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Gantt Center; in Duluth, Minnesota at

Tweed Museum of Art The Tweed Museum of Art is a museum on the campus of the University of Minnesota Duluth, in Duluth, Minnesota, United States. The Tweed Museum of Art was established in 1950 when Alice Tweed Tuohy, widow of George P. Tweed, donated their house an ...

; in Colorado at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art; in Washington D.C. at

The World Bank The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Grou ...

; and in New York at the June Kelly Gallery. Logan was a 2001 Artist-in-Residence at the

McColl Center for Art + Innovation McColl Center (formerly McColl Center for Art + Innovation) is an artist residency and contemporary art space located at 721 North Tryon Street in Charlotte, North Carolina.20 years of Artists-In-Residence
McColl Center His work is in many public and corporate collections such as

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

National Museum of African Art The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian Institution's African art museum, located on the National Mall of the United States capital. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African art from both Sub-S ...

Mint Museum of Art The Mint Museum, also referred to as The Mint Museums, is a cultural institution comprising two museums, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Mint Museum Randolph and Mint Museum Uptown, together these two locations have hundreds of collection ...

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

, and the

Art in Embassies Program Art in Embassies, an office within the U.S. Department of State, promotes cultural diplomacy through exhibitions, permanent collections, site-specific commissions and two-way artist exchanges in more than 200 U.S. Embassies and Consulates around the ...

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. Logan was selected for support from many foundations including the Pollination Project for his interactive, traveling ''Waiting Project''. Logan's work appeared in the exhibition ''REMIX'' at the

Columbia Museum of Art The Columbia Museum of Art is an art museum in the American city of Columbia, South Carolina. History The Columbia Museum of Art was originally in the 1908 private residence of the city's Taylor family. Located on Senate Street in Columbia, ad ...

in 2016.

Personal life

Logan currently resides in Belmont,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. He is married to curator Jonell Logan.

External links

Official website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Logan, Juan Living people Painters from Tennessee African-American sculptors 21st-century American sculptors 21st-century American male artists American male sculptors 1946 births Artists from Nashville, Tennessee People from Marion, North Carolina People from Belmont, North Carolina Sculptors from Tennessee African-American painters 21st-century African-American artists 20th-century African-American people