Prior to his appointment at the University of Iowa, Edie was employed by the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP). He arrived via the Art Students League in New York City and the Woodstock Artist’s Colony in Upstate New York, which were considered important centers of the visual arts. Stuart Edie succeeded Philip Guston, meeting the needs of the growing ranks of students enrolled on the GI Bill after the end of World War II. The Great Byron Burford Circus of Artistic Wonders, which toured the Midwest, was a seminal project that integrated performance with a collection of motorized canvases. During much of his life and over his active career as an artist and educator, Byron Burford traveled with the circus performing, painting, and teaching. Burford utilized many experimental materials such as encaustic, alkyd resin and screenprinting. His early works depicting soldiers are presented with a muted palette, while his vivid, circus-themed works are more colorfully expressive, composed in a figuratively abstract style. Following in the footsteps of renowned artist educators Grant Wood and Philip Guston, the painters Byron Burford (American, 1920–2011), Stuart Edie (American, 1908–1974), and James Lechay (American, 1907–2001) joined the University of Iowa faculty in the 1940s and 1950s.īyron Burford is best known for his paintings and prints of circus life. The University of Iowa was one of the first American universities to hire professional artists as professors. Caligari's Cabinet of Horrors.īurford painted dozens of motorized life-sized canvas-covered figures, included a life-sized elephant, put them under a canvas tent and toured the Midwest in the 1970's under the sponsorship of the National Endowment of the Arts.Eye on UI Faculty: Byron Burford, Stuart Edie, and James Lechay In addition to his teaching career, in the 1950's, Byron moonlighted both as a jazz musician and as a magician touring Midwestern movie theatres with his spook show Dr. Since 1986, he was a professor emeritus at the same university.Īlso he was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota in 1959, at California College of Arts in 1962 and at the University Massachusetts of Amherst in 1967. Five years later Byron became a teacher of painting and then a professor of art at the University of Iowa, where he worked until 1986. He joined the United States Army Air Corps in 1942.
(age 90) Jackson, Mississippi, United Statesīurford began his career as a roadie for the Tom Mix Circus in 1934 and he also painted circus life.
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