University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Dean H. Nimmer

 BFA `68, MFA `70 from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Professor Emeritus of Painting and Drawing, Massachusetts College of Art

Dean is a highly accomplished artist, award-winning educator, and a successful author in the field of art and art education.  He has empowered generations of artist through his enthusiasm and unbridled creativity.

Dean has lectured on his techniques for teaching intuitive creativity to students at many U.S. colleges and universities including Vanderbilt, Harvard, Yale, MIT, and James Madison University.  He has lead art workshops at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia; Winchester College Graduate program, Spain; Burren College of the Arts, Ireland; and the Central Academy of Art and Design in Beijing, China.

As an artist, Dean has exhibited his work in over 200 solo and group exhibitions across the United States, Europe, China, Japan and Australia.  A catalog of his “1,000 Drawings” project was for his show that traveled from Boston to Germany, France, Spain, and Japan.

His book, “Art from Intuition”, originally published in 2008 by Watson/Guptill/Random House has sold over 20,000 copies in two years and is in its fourth printing.  The book has over 60 innovative projects that encourage readers to explore new ideas and experiment with a variety of media and techniques that stimulate the imagination.  Many teachers across the country have adopted this book as a text for their classes.  Dean is currently writing new books for both Random House and for Pearson/Prentiss Hall.

In 2010, Dean received the Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, given by the 16,000-member College Art Association for his 34 years of his dynamic and astonishing career as an educator.   Following his “retirement”, he continues to teach as an Adjunct Professor at the Holyoke Community College and teaches Second to Eighth-grade special needs students at Curtis Blake Day School in Springfield, Massachusetts.