Dale Threlkeld is an American artist and educator known for paintings and drawings held in museum, corporate, and university collections. His career has included college-level teaching, national exhibitions, military service in Vietnam, and major presentations at institutions including the Brooklyn Museum and the Castellani Art Museum.
Background
Dale Threlkeld was born on April 11, 1944, in Shelbina, Missouri. He grew up in rural Missouri and around racetracks, where his father worked as a jockey and later trained and raced thoroughbreds. Threlkeld was the first member of his family to attend college, and he supported himself during his studies through work in a college café and by teaching horseback riding at summer camps in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
His early environment combined rural and equestrian life with an emerging interest in art. A first-grade teacher who was an artist and his mother's later return to school to become a nurse were among the influences associated with his formative years. After completing his undergraduate art degree, he entered military service during the Vietnam War.
Education
Threlkeld received a Bachelor of Science in Art from Northeast Missouri State University in 1966. The institution, founded as a normal school in 1867 and later known as Truman State University, developed from teacher education into a public liberal-arts university in northeastern Missouri.
He pursued graduate study in drawing at Ball State University, receiving a Master of Arts in 1970. Ball State, founded in Muncie, Indiana, grew from a teachers college into a comprehensive public university with established programs in the arts and education. He later earned a Master of Fine Arts in Drawing from Southern Illinois University in 1975, continuing the studio-based education that supported his work as an artist and college instructor.
Career
Threlkeld began exhibiting drawings and paintings in national competitions in 1970 while teaching at the college level. His early work included drawings and works on paper, and he exhibited in regional and national shows during the 1970s, including exhibitions associated with the Arkansas Art Center, the Brooks Memorial Gallery, the Dulin Gallery of Art, and the Evansville Museum of Art.
His first New York gallery connection followed a 1974 visit to Pratt Institute. He subsequently exhibited at Gimpel & Weitzenhoffer, Genesis Gallery, and Frank Marino Gallery in New York. During the 1980s and 1990s he continued exhibiting in invitational, group, and one-person shows, including presentations at the Evanston Art Center, Southern Illinois University, and the Contemporary Art Center in Peoria.
Threlkeld's later career included exhibitions at the Dubuque Museum of Art, the Mitchell Museum of Art, the Schmidt Art Center, the Krasl Art Center, and the Hatheway Cultural Center at Lewis and Clark Community College. His work was presented in the exhibitions "The New Expressionists" in 2002, "Birth to Light" in 2012, and "End of Illusion" at the Castellani Art Museum from July 13, 2014, through January 4, 2015. His paintings and drawings entered collections associated with the Brooklyn Museum, Illinois State Museum, Arkansas Arts Center, Atlantic Richfield, Northern Illinois University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Truman University, Wabash College, and other institutions.
As an educator, Threlkeld taught art at Belleville Area College, later Southwestern Illinois College, beginning in 1970. He also helped introduce sculpture to the Belleville campus and contributed to the development of the Schmidt Art Center, which houses a substantial collection of art at the college. His paintings increasingly became associated with vivid color, flowing forms, and an abstract or expressionist approach; he described painting as an exploratory process in which the work develops through the interaction of colors and forms.
Achievements
Threlkeld's paintings and drawings have been acquired by or represented in collections associated with the Brooklyn Museum, Illinois State Museum, Arkansas Arts Center, Atlantic Richfield, Northern Illinois University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Truman University, Wabash College, and other public, university, and corporate institutions.
He developed a sustained exhibition career spanning regional and national competitions, New York galleries, museum exhibitions, and solo presentations, including the 2012 Birth to Light exhibition and the 2014–2015 End of Illusion exhibition at the Castellani Art Museum.
(A painting by Threlkeld presented in the Birth to Light e...)
2012
Views
Threlkeld's statements about painting emphasize discovery, visual contrast, and an open-ended relationship between artwork and viewer. He has explained that he begins with colors and allows the image to develop through the process of painting, leaving room for interpretation rather than prescribing a single subject or meaning.
Personality
In an interview about his work, Threlkeld described a positive approach to painting and emphasized the importance of contrast, discovery, and the viewer's imaginative response. He characterized the process of making a painting as an adventure rather than as the execution of a completely predetermined plan.
Quotes from others about the person
In discussing his paintings, Threlkeld said that when viewers become excited by a work, that response itself can constitute meaning. He also described contrast as a fundamental device available to a painter.
Interests
Equestrian activities and horseback riding.
Connections
Threlkeld married Lisa Jayne Willard on June 15, 1985. Their children are Lisa K., Holly, Alexis, Olivia, and Zachary Threlkeld.
Dale Threlkeld: End of Illusion
Provides biographical information about Threlkeld's rural Missouri upbringing, military service, education, teaching career, exhibitions, and artistic development.
2014
Schmidt Art Center history
Documents Threlkeld's role as an art professor at Belleville Area College, his work introducing sculpture to the campus, and his contribution to the development of the Schmidt Art Center.
Hatheway Cultural Center
Documents the 2012 inaugural exhibition of the Hatheway Art Gallery, which featured Threlkeld's Birth to Light.
Threlkeld received the Bronze Star Medal for his service in Vietnam during 1967–1968, where he served in the United States Army and attained the rank of staff sergeant.
Threlkeld received the Bronze Star Medal for his service in Vietnam during 1967–1968, where he served in the United States Army and attained the rank of staff sergeant.
Purchase awards,
United States
His work received purchase awards associated with exhibitions and collections including the Dulin Gallery of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Illinois State Museum, the Arkansas Arts Center, and the Atlantic Richfield Company collection.
His work received purchase awards associated with exhibitions and collections including the Dulin Gallery of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Illinois State Museum, the Arkansas Arts Center, and the Atlantic Richfield Company collection.
