Warren Criswell

"I was a loner as a kid, an only child, the kind that grow up to be terrorists, bank robbers or artists. I wasn't interested in terror but tried robbery, stole a watch in the third grade but got caught and took up art. They haven't caught me at that yet." (Warren Criswell) ---




“I am saying that a journey is called that because you cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what you will do, what you will find, or what you find will do to you.” (James Baldwin) ---


Warren Criswell was born in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1936 and has lived in Arkansas with his wife Janet since their bus broke down there in 1978. Primarily a self-taught painter, Criswell is also a printmaker, sculptor and animator. He has had 41 solo exhibitions in the United States and one in Taiwan. His work has been included in 77 group exhibitions in New York, Atlanta, Washington DC, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Germany and Taiwan, and is represented in the permanent collections of many institutions, including: The Arkansas Arts Center; the McKissick Museum of the University of South Carolina; The Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA; Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock, AR; the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Capital Arts Center, Taipei, China; the University of Central Arkansas; Hendrix College; the Center for Arts & Science of SE Arkansas; and the Central Arkansas Library System, as well as in private and corporate collections in the United States, Europe and Asia. ---


In 2021 he won the Arksnsas Governor's Award for Individual artist. In 1996 he was awarded a fellowship grant for painting and works on paper by the Mid-America Arts Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2003 an Individual Artist Fellowship Grant for painting and drawing by the Arkansas Arts Council. Warren Criswell is currently represented by M2 Gallery in Little Rock and Saatchi Art.

Studied at Norton Museum School of Art, W. Palm Beach, Fla., Arkansas Museum of Art and University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2013
Austin Peah State University, Clarksville, TN, "Warren Criswell's Prints & Flicks," Sept 23 - Oct 5

Taylor's Contemporanea Fine Arts, Hot Springs, AR, "The Criswell Show," Mar 1 - April 5, 2013

2012
Pulaski Technical College, Ottenheimer Library, North Little Rock, AR, “It’s About Time,” Nov 1 – Dec 15

Arkansas Tech University, Norman Hall Gallery,Russellville, AR, “Time & Space,” Mar 1 – Mar 30

Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR, "Still Crazy," June 29 - Aug 18, 2012

2006
Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock, AR: “Warren Criswell Moves”, Oct – Jan

2003
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR: “Warren Criswell: Shadows”, June 12 - August 10

2002
Hendrix College, Conway, AR: “Le Monde de Tenebre: Warren Criswell’s Pictures,” October

2001
Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock, AR: “Warren Criswell: Perceptions & Conceptions”

Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, AR: “Warren Criswell GRAPHIC: New Linocuts”

2000
Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, KS: “The Works of Warren Criswell”

1999
Raymond Lawrence Gallery, Atlanta, GA

1998
Fine Arts Gallery, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR [with Larry Edwards of Memphis]

1996
University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR

1995
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Pine Bluff, AR

1993
Capitol Art Center, Taipei, Taiwan

1992
Taylor’s Contemporanea, Hot Springs, AR

University of Arkansas at Little Rock, AR

1990
University of North Carolina, Wilmington,NC
Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR

1989
Hendrix College, Conway, AR

1986
Public Service Commission, Little Rock, AR

For more exhibitions, awards for and publications about Warren Criswell visit www.warrencriswell.com/resume.html.