Harold Linton

Harold Linton, Professor, has served as Director of the School of Art from 2005 – 2013, College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Previously, Harold served as Chairman of the Department of Art at Bradley University, 1998 – 2005 developing scholarships, endowment, professional lecture and exhibition programs, internet technology initiatives, international study programs, and new undergraduate and graduate art and design studio concentrations. In 2001, he received the highest endowed award for professional excellence at Bradley University, Caterpillar Professor of Art, and simultaneously for the Department of Art, the William Rainey Harper Award for Department Excellence. In 2004, he was the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Grant to study cultural life and contemporary social issues in South Africa. He subsequently authored a photo-essay exhibition catalog with introduction by Barack Obama entitled, “The Children of South Africa”, as a fundraising and awareness program that traveled throughout the United States.

Having been associated with the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, Michigan, 1974 – 1998, he served as Assistant Dean of the College of Architecture from 1991 – 1998 and as Chairperson of their new Department of Art and Design. At Lawrence Tech, he initiated the first Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program in Architectural Illustration in North America and directed the college and its design programs through successful accreditation. His research on color in 3d-design was recognized by an invitation to serve as co-founder and Professor of the first Master of Arts degree program in Color Design in Europe at the University of Art and Design UIAH, Helsinki, Finland, 1996 – 1997.

Linton is the author of nineteen books and numerous journal articles on design, drawing, architecture, and color. Several published works have become adopted texts throughout the US, Asia, and Europe. Harold has served as visiting lecturer in design at over 100 schools of art and architecture. Included among these are Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York; the Harvard Graduate School of Design; Cambridge, Massachusetts; The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.; Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois; the University of Michigan, School of Art and Architecture, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Linton’s Portfolio Design first published in 1996 by W.W. Norton and Company, New York, is now in its fourth full-color edition. Linton is the recipient of more than thirty citations from leading art and design schools noting his work as a prized resource. In its various iterations and editions, more than 200 colleges and universities in the United States and abroad have adopted Portfolio Design. Linton’s work on color is also the subject of articles and interviews in the New York Times, Metropolis Magazine, Departures Magazine, and numerous journals.

He serves NASAD as a visiting accreditation evaluator of higher education programs throughout the United States. His artwork can be found in numerous public, private and museum collections. He is the recipient of the national competition first prize award and commission for an 18’-0” relief construction entitled “Fortunes of Nature” for the Richard M. DeVos Center, GVSU, Grand Rapids, Michigan, featured on the cover of “Interior Architecture of China” July edition 2007. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Painting, Yale University, studies with Al Held, Lester Johnson, and Bernard Chaet, and in Architecture and Planning at Yale with Howard Brown, Associate to R. Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller; and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, Syracuse University, with studies in design with Lee Ducell, sculptural designer for Minoru Yamasaki.