Photo by Hoa Thanh Pham
Lawrence D’Attilio is a mentor artist in residence since September 2009. He has been a fine art photographer for many years and has exhibited internationally while also teaching photography. More recently he has been noted as the first foreigner ever to be given permission directly by the government’s Ministry of Culture to exhibit in Vietnam’s National Museum of Fine Art. The four years of his work in Vietnam has been supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation Mary L. Nohl Fund and The Underwood Foundation. Additionally he has received other grants enabled through two generous though anonymous gifts recognizing his artistic achievements and international relationship building with Vietnam.
The artist received his fine art degree from the University of Louisville and went on to study with Ansel Adams then received further design training at UWM. Lawrence is the original founder of the Coalition for Photographic Arts (CoPA) and was the resident artist for five years at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts. He also was a resident artist at Campus Hanoi in Vietnam in 2006.
During his long tenure as a fine art photographer Lawrence also had a parallel career as a performing artist with 28 years as the Assistant Principal Bassoonist of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He also founded and ran a corporation active in general aviation during which as a pilot he flew for over 800 hours.
Larry is continuing his work in Vietnam just returning to the U.S. after another multi month stay to do his grant related work. That stay was his eight. He said “I am fortunate to have had an exciting life and at its best now experiencing Vietnam so much together with the adventurous art experience at RedLine – Milwaukee”.