Arts Educator: An arts educator at the elementary, secondary, or university level who has shown exemplary dedication and commitment to teaching, advising and mentoring art students.
Charles Beneke
Charles Beneke, Distinguished Professor of Art at the University of Akron, is the Printmaking area coordinator and the assistant director of The Mary Schiller Myers School of Art. Since joining the MSA faculty in 2001, he has taught 2D Design, Drawing I & Drawing II, Introduction to Printmaking, Relief/Screenprint, Intaglio/Lithography, and Intermediate & Advanced Printmaking in addition to Special Topics in Printmaking— Book Arts, Photogravure, Posters & Zines, and The Persuasive Print. Beneke earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Psychology from Kenyon College in 1990. After working in book cover design in New York City, he attended The University of Connecticut where he was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking and Mixed-media in 1996. He served as the Associate Dean of Academics for the Graduate School at The University of Akron from January 2016 through August 2017. He was the 2018-20 president of the Southern Graphics Council International and the 2008-10 president of the Mid-America Print Council. In 2022 he was honored with the Leadership in Printmaking Award at the Power of Print Mid-America Print Council Biennial Conference. Beneke’s works in a broad range of print media and installation address the ever-evolving nature of identity as shaped through time, place, and lived experience. His work has been exhibited in regional, national, and international venues including The American University in Cairo (Cairo, Egypt), Festival Internacional De Grabado Contemporaneo (Bilbao, Spain), Hillard Art Museum at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, and the Hayden Art Center at the University of Nebraska Lincoln among many others. He was a semifinalist in The Print Center’s 93rd ANNUAL International Competition (Philadelphia, PA) and won Best of Show in the 2001 Cleveland Biennial Juried Exhibition (Cleveland, OH). In 2015 his solo exhibition Specter, an installation/relational aesthetic work, transformed the Akron Art Museum Isroff Gallery urging viewers to confront their roles in the current climate crisis.
