Today marks the Annual Stilwell Student Juried Exhibition and Stilwell awards celebration. Below is the first printed announcement for the annual award and exhibition from 1987. The program provides a biography of Stilwell as well as a listing of award winners and exhibiting students.
Below are photographs from 1953, which show Stilwell along with students, preparing for the 12th Annual South Dakota State Competition for Art for high school artists.
The University art department is sponsoring a competition for all high school students in addition to the scholarship competition for seniors. In the competition among all classes, awards of merit will be presented to all outstanding examples of drawing, painting, commercial art, and other types of art. In addition, every competitor will receive an individual criticism which will indicate the strong and weak points of his work, Stilwell promises. The criticism will be designed to help each competitor to improve his work…Seventy-seven awards were made last year, whereas only 56 awards were given the year previous in the University competition. — Volante February 17, 1953
Whether encouraging those at the high-school level, or engaging with his students at the college level, Stilwell was a tireless advocate of the visual arts and his legacy continues on today.
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