TARRANT COUNTY EDUCATION FOUNDATION
OUR CHILDREN. OUR INVESTMENT. OUR FUTURE.
TARRANT COUNTY EDUCATION FOUNDATION
OUR CHILDREN. OUR INVESTMENT. OUR FUTURE.
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Your contributions will enable us to meet our 2025 goals of awarding twenty-five $5,000 scholarships to Tarrant County students.
TCEF Art of Giving
Artist Willie Cole will return to Fort Worth in the Spring of 2026 to open a new exhibit of the Giant Water Bottle Sculpture. This engaging art experience aims to increase awareness of the problem of plastics in our environment, share responsibility, and provide practical solutions.
WILLIE COLE
Willie Cole: Artist, Sculptor, Perceptual Engineer, Conservationist
Willie Cole describes himself as a Perceptual Engineer. It’s not always easy to “open up perception” and see familiar objects in a fresh way, Cole says. “You have to look at everything to see what you’re reminded of,” Cole stresses. “Everything can be anything.”
Born in Somerville, New Jersey, in 1955, attended the famed Arts High School in Newark, NJ. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Manhattan. He lives and works in New Jersey.
His work has been the subject of several one-person museum exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1998), Bronx Museum of the Arts (2001), Miami Art Museum (2001), Tampa Museum of Art (2004), University of Wyoming Art Museum (2006), Montclair Art Museum (2006), College of Wooster Art Museum (2013-14) and many others.
In 2010, a survey exhibition of his work on paper (1975-2010) took place at the James Gallery of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and traveled to Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, University of Alabama and Rowan University Art Gallery, New Jersey.
Several of his sculptures were included in “Reconfiguring an African Icon: Odes to the Mask by Modern and Contemporary Artists from Three Continents” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2011). In 2013, a traveling exhibition “Complex Conversations: Willie Cole Sculptures and Wall Works” opened at Albertine Monroe-Brown Gallery at Western Michigan University.
Willie Cole received his bachelor's degree from Boston University School of Fine Arts. Willie Cole also attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
In 2015, Cole’s work was included in “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and “Wild Noise: Artwork from the Bronx Museum of the Arts” at El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana. In 2016, his work was included in “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art” at the Brooklyn Museum.
“Willie Cole: On-Site” opened at the David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, and traveled to the Museum of Art at the University of New Hampshire, and Arthur Ross Gallery, Philadelphia in 2016. The following year, Cole had solo exhibitions at the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame and at the College of Architecture and Design Gallery at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 2019, “Willie Cole: Beauties” opened at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University and “Willie Cole: Bella Figura” at Alexander and Bonin, New York.
He has served as an artist in residence in the John Michael Kohler Arts Center Arts/Industry Program in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Kansas City, where he recently installed his “Ornithology” at the New Terminal at the International Airport. Virginia Tech College of Architecture and Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. His headdresses have adorned the models of the Paris Runway. He was inducted into the National Academy of Design in 2023, an organization that recognizes the highest achievements in architectural design. Willie Cole’s The Beauties Rising has been acquired by our very own Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth.
TCEF invited Willie Cole to Fort Worth in October 2023 to share his compelling concept of "Artcycling" with students from Fort Worth ISD, including I.M. Terrell VPA High School, Young Men's Leadership Academy, Young Women's Leadership Academy, Tarrant County Collegiate High School, and Cristo Rey College Prep High School. Students from Texas Wesleyan University and Texas Christian University were also included.
To learn more about Willie Cole, click here.
The Giant Water Bottle Sculpture Project Sponsors
