About the artist
HAROLD LINTON was born in 1947 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the shadow of Carnegie-Mellon University, Oakland, Pa. Linton attended Pre-College classes at CMU in drawing and design and attended the Lowe School of Art at Syracuse University where he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1969. While at Syracuse, Linton competed successfully for the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship [Painting], Yale/Norfolk Yale School of Art, Norfolk, Ct. 1968. Linton is considered one of today’s authorities on color in architecture and design and a leading proponent and well-known authority on portfolio design for architecture, fine arts, and allied design disciplines. He has continually engaged in the tenants and practices of abstraction first through his painting series entitled, The Grid Paintings, over 100 paintings created from the 1970s through the early 1990s. These works were subsequently followed by the Constructs series from the early 1990s - 2010. Most recently, the newest series entitled, The Arcs, are composed as linear bentwood relief constructions of minimalist tenants. Created with expertise in bending/laminating sustainable hardwoods into uncommon curvilinear configurations, these are eloquent expressions of reductive spatial forms with references to the origins of organic form in nature and human movement.
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 an invited visiting lecturer in design at over 100 schools of art and architecture. 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. 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 LTU from 1991 – 1998 and as Chairperson of their new Department of Art and Design. 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 has served as Director of the School of Art from 2005 – 2013, College of Visual and Performing Arts, 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 catalogue with introduction by Barack Obama entitled, “The Children of South Africa”, as a fundraising and awareness program that travelled throughout the United States.