2016 Interviews

Annette Polan- ART CART Oral Histories

Polan, Annette; Witkop, Carrie; Research Center for Arts and Culture

Annette Polan is internationally known as a portrait artist living in Washington DC. Ms. Polan is the mother of Courtney Van Winkle Fox and Arthur Lowell Fox III. Born in Huntington, West Virginia, graduated from The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pa. and Hollins University in Va. where she was honored with the Distinguished Alumnae Award, she is also Dipolmée from the École du Louvre in Art History. Her portraits include photographed and painted the official portraits of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and other leaders of industry and government. In addition to painting, Professor Polan is Professor Emerita from the Corcoran College of Art + Design at George Washington University and Principal of Insight Institute, a non-profit that promotes innovation, cititical thinking and creative problem solving through visual intelligence in a variety of educational and professional contexts from military, law enforcement, and medical training to business management.

Professor Polan has taught and lectured on her work and contemporary American portraiture in Europe, Asia, and Australia, and has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. She is a participant in the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassy Program. She was Chair and Founder of Faces of the Fallen, an exhibition of 1323 portraits by 230 American artists, honoring American servicemen and women who died in Afghanistan and Iraq between October 10, 2001 and November 11, 2004. In recognition of her leadership on that project, she was awarded the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Outstanding Public Service Award.
Keywords: studio, work ethic, inspiration, Hollins class reunion, invisibility, women, Faces of the Fallen, the Corcoran, portraiture, importance of showing work, Balzak.