Mustari, Louis

I hold Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Fine Arts (drawing and sculpture) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned a PhD in Medieval and Renaissance art history at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, with some course work at the University of Florence, Italy.  I had the opportunity to teach at Iowa State University, Iowa City Iowa; Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois; Northern Illinois University, DeKalb Illinois; Salzburg College, Austria and the Center for Macedonian Studies in Thessaloniki, Greece; and have led several study groups to Italy, France, Germany, Yugoslavia and Greece.  Over the years my art has been accepted in many juried exhibitions and I have won several prestigious awards, e.g. the Van de Vries Award, Art Institute of Chicago; Chicago and Vicinity Sculpture Award; Presidential Fellowship, University of Iowa, Iowa City; Fulbright Scholarship to Italy; and First Place in Drawing, Rock Island Illinois Fine Arts Festival.

I have been retired from formal teaching since 1994 and am active as a practicing and exhibiting artist working mainly in drawing and woodcarving.  My work is the direct outcome of some of my most basic ideas.  I believe visual art to be an aesthetic expression in a given medium that communicates something of the human condition and experience.  As human beings we communicate best by what we hold in common, whether by sound, sign or symbol.  The one thing all of us have in common is a human body and therefore the most direct if not the best way of communicating is by means of that which we all hold in common, our human body.

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