Grocery Store with Back Room #1

inkjet print, acrylic, and paint

25 x 21 inches

Courtesy of Suzanne Seipel

Special thanks for this 100% donation

Joe Seipel was a prominent local artist, educator, and a cornerstone of Richmond's arts community. Known for his "powerful yet playful" approach, his 50-year career spanned monumental sculpture, robotics, and administrative leadership as a professor, department chair, and Dean of VCU's School of the Arts. In the final years of his career, he focused on a series of mixed-media pieces that transformed photographs into three-dimensional objects.

For more than 40 years, Joseph Seipel's studio production varied from large-scale sculptures to long-term process pieces, to installations, and recently to works that combine sculpture, painting and photography. His studio pursuits and his academic career have intertwined and evolved from his early years in rural Wisconsin to dean of one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

Joe served in academic leadership roles and on numerous boards and councils. He has received many honors including being awarded the University of Wisconsin, School of Education, Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award and in 2019 being named one of Richmond's Persons of the Year by the Richmond Times Dispatch. Among his produest accomplishments is his Life Time Achievement Award for Sculpture Education from the International Sculpture Center.

Among many other locations, his work has been shown in Baltimore, New York, Savannah, Peru, and Richmond.