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Melvin Edwards (1937 - ) Melvin Edwards Texas-born, Edwards began drawing in kindergarten and realized a special ability by fourth grade. A teacher, Ethel Ladner, nurtured his art through painting at Phyllis Wheatley High School in Houston. He received a grounding in painting and drawing, color theory and art history at Los Angeles City College and the Los Angeles County Art Institute, and received his B.F.A. from the University of Southern California, which he attended on a football scholarship. Later, he met Robert Blackburn, the noted African-American printmaker, and made a number of prints at his Printmaking Workshop in New York City. "In the 1970s, it was impossible for an artist of color to come to New York and not do a print at Bob Blackburn's," reports Anreus. Edwards was teaching at the University of Connecticut when he was offered a contract to teach at Livingston College. He came to Rutgers in 1972 and currently teaches courses in Third World art, drawing and sculpture. He has had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum and the New Jersey State Museum and has completed more than 15 public art projects across the United States. In addition, he has had major exhibitions from Paris to Japan and received a Fulbright fellowship to Zimbabwe. His research into Third World visual culture has taken him to Morocco, Senegal, Brazil, China, Cuba and Nigeria. In 1993, a 30-year retrospective of his work (sculpture only) was held at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, N.Y. Several of his works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Utsukuski-ga-hara Open-Air Museum in Japan. Begin slide show