FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Barbara Morningstar
University Art Gallery Coordinator
(805) 756-1571
Retrospective Exhibit of Dan Piel’s Paintings
To Be Exhibited at Cal Poly May 14-June 4
SAN LUIS OBISPO – The paintings of Dan Piel, a former member of
Cal
Poly’s Art and Design faculty who passed away in 2002, will be exhibited
in the University Art Gallery Friday, May 14, through Friday, June 4.
Titled "The Retrospective Exhibition of Dan Piel's Art from Childhood
to
Madison Avenue to San Luis Obispo," the exhibit will open with a
reception from 6 to 8 p.m. May 14.
After a long career in advertising on Madison Avenue in New York City,
Piel went to teach at Washington State University in Pullman. He was
hired as a graphic design instructor at Cal Poly in 1980 and later
taught drawing and painting as well.
“Dan Piel's years in the advertising business helped develop him
into a
consummate salesman who could charm your socks off," said Chuck
Jennings, art and design professor emeritus. Jennings fondly remembers
Piel and his good humor. “It was wonderful to see him return to
his
passion for painting. Piel's love for it made him prolific.”
Piel is widely known in San Luis Obispo as the artist who painted the
huge “Mozart” in the Cal Poly Theatre. His large portrait
of President
Lyndon B. Johnson hangs in the Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, and his
portraits of Chief Joseph hang in the Nez Perce County Museum in
Lewiston, Idaho. A portrait series, titled “From Lincoln to Lenin,
first
exhibited at Cal Poly in the ’80s was purchased by the Lavignes/Bastille
Gallery in Paris.
A friend, Jim Maguire, said, “Dan was the quintessential artist
with the
artist's constant sense of wonder and requisite eye for detail. He was
a
‘seeker of wisdom’ and, in particular, a seeker of the ‘source
of
creative energy in the universe.’ He was most content when he could
share his art and himself with those he cared about.”
“Thanks to Dan's gracious and generous wife, Susan Piel, we will
all
carry a little of Dan Piel with us with the exhibit catalog, and once
again we will be able to be blessed by Dan Piel's art and inspiration,”
said Barbara Morningstar, curator of the University Art Gallery.
University Art Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m.
to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday. Parking is free on the weekends.
For more information, call the University Art Gallery at 756-1571.
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