Evan Leroy Lindquist (1936–2023)

Evan Leroy Lindquist of Jonesboro (Craighead County) was an American artist renowned as an artist-printmaker and art educator. His works are in permanent collections of many major galleries across the United States and around the world.

Evan Lindquist was born on May 23, 1936, in Salina, Kansas, to Elmer L. Lindquist and Linnette Shogren Lindquist. His father was a corporate officer for a chain of retail lumber firms, and his mother was a homemaker. In 1945, Lindquist’s family moved to Emporia, Kansas, where Lindquist built a calligraphy business while in junior high school, encouraged by his father, an expert in ornamental penmanship. The business included creating certificates and charters for national organizations. His calligraphy experience led to a very recognizable style of pictorial art that emphasizes calligraphic lines.

Lindquist graduated from Emporia High School in 1954. While a high school student, he was an apprentice to a sign company to learn the art of gold-leaf and sign lettering. He attended Emporia State University from 1954 through 1958 and was employed as a lab assistant in the biology department and as an artist in the graphic arts printing program. He earned a BS with honors in education, with teaching fields in art and biology.

On June 8, 1958, he married artist-educator Sharon Lindquist; they had two sons.

From 1958 to 1960, he served as staff artist at Emporia State. From 1960 to 1963, he studied art and printmaking at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. After receiving his MFA there in 1963, he joined the faculty of Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro as a professor of art. In 1981, he was named Outstanding Faculty Member at ASU and was appointed first chairman of the President’s Fellows, a group of faculty members who created and taught ASU’s first honors courses. From 1970 to 1980, he also served as director of the Arkansas State University Art Gallery. In 1996, he initiated the Delta National Small Prints exhibition, a prestigious annual event held at ASU, continuing as exhibition director for two years.

At ASU, Lindquist taught printmaking, drawing, and honors classes. His teaching career spanned forty years until his retirement from ASU in 2003. That year, he was named Emeritus Professor of Art. In 2004, he received the Arkansas Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award as well as a Distinguished Alumni Award from Emporia State University. Even following his retirement, he continued to be active in the art world, creating prints in his private studio in Jonesboro. Some of his most noteworthy engravings include Albrecht Dürer Engraves His Initials, Claude Mellan Engraves a Self-Portrait, Carl, Conversations, Cosmos, Document, Dream III, Gravity, Survivor, The Lute, and Thought.

His works are in the permanent collections of many prestigious institutions, including the Arkansas Arts Center (now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts) in Little Rock (Pulaski County); Albertina in Vienna, Austria; Uffizi in Florence, Italy; Dublin City Gallery in Dublin, Ireland; Reina Sophía in Madrid, Spain; Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; San Francisco Art Museum; Art Institute of Chicago; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; New Orleans Museum of Art; St. Louis Art Museum; and the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, among many others.

His prints intertwine highly detailed linear rhythms cut by hand with a burin onto a copper plate. His artistic style has been described by reviewers as calligraphic, satirical, and philosophical, with one reviewer describing them as “metaphors of the mind.” Recurring topics that appear in his works include string theories, labyrinths, academe, portraits, documents, and other themes unusual for twentieth-century artists. In 1995, Lindquist was commissioned by ASU to create a commemorative engraving, titled President and Scholars, presented to President Bill Clinton during the dedication of ASU’s Dean B. Ellis Library that year.

Lindquist had more than fifty solo and more than 100 invitational group exhibits, and he received more than sixty awards in competitive exhibitions. His prints were in more than 200 juried exhibitions, with awards received from Boston Printmakers, Potsdam State University, San Diego State University, Hunterdon Art Center, Silvermine Guild of Artists, Minot State University, the Montgomery Museum of Art, and others.

A solo exhibition of his work toured several states during 1973–75. Solo exhibitions traveling to various locations in Arkansas were organized by the Arkansas Arts Center and shown around the state, including at the Arts Center of the Ozarks in Springdale (Washington and Benton counties). In 2010, Lindquist was named to receive “distinguished artist” recognition by the Society of American Graphic Artists. In 2013, he was named the first Artist Laureate for the state by Governor Mike Beebe.

Lindquist died in Jonesboro on December 18, 2023.

For additional information:
Bardis, Kellie. “Lindquist Honored with Lifetime Achievement Award.” Jonesboro Sun, August 8, 2004, p. 8C.

Berry, Bill. “History Lesson: The Art of Evan Lindquist.” Arkansas Times, June 1985, pp. 45–47.

Brown, Laura Lynn. “Vividly Etched.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, November 17, 2014, pp. 1E, 6E.

Evan Lindquist. http://evanlindquist.com/ (accessed December 21, 2023).

Evan Lindquist Papers, 1970–2001. Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC. Finding aid online at https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/evan-lindquist-papers-6033 (accessed January 2, 2024).

Kaufman, Charles. “Lindquist Engraves Mind Metaphors.” Arkansas Gazette, November 6, 1981, p. 10B.

Nancy Hendricks
Arkansas State University