CRANSTON, RI, July 10, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Preston M. McClanahan III with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Mr. McClanahan celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Having earned the distinguished title of a professor emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) after 26 years before his retirement in 1998, Mr. McClanahan garnered a laudable reputation as a talented artist and graphic designer. In 1985, he also founded PM Films LLC as its chief executive officer. Operating within the areas of Providence. Rhode Island and Savoy, Massachusetts, Mr. McClanahan's organization provides various services which include professional graphic design and illustration, drawings and paintings, as well as writing services on form and content.
During Mr. McClanahan's tenure at RISD, he initiated and founded a course on visual syntax in 1975, which applies to all the visual arts in image making from architecture, graphic and industrial design to sculpture and painting. He also led the graphic design program for two years. RISD, a private, nonprofit college, was notably founded in Providence in 1877, making it one of the first art and design schools in the U.S.
Other noteworthy roles to Mr. McClanahan's credit include working as a staff exhibition designer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City between 1960 and 1971. There, he designed numerous exhibits, including 'Dating the Past with Atoms', 'The Hall of Biology' and, most significantly 'The Hall of the Peoples of the Pacific,' which was a major work for Dr. Margaret Mead's exhibition of ethnology. Dr. Mead summarized his accomplishment as follows: "The use of Plexiglas and plastic in the design of the Hall has paralleled Preston McClanahan's work as an artist, and his shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and the Whitney Museum have involved the complementary uses of transparency and simplicity. The Hall has grown slowly. He started working on it in 1960 and there were many interruptions before the final push began in 1969. But the sense of distinctness of each area has been preserved. The job of the designer who deals with a dramatic presentation like a Hall is made easier if he is working with artifacts of human beings who are themselves masters of design. There is no feeling of artificiality in the Hall. The presentation is, in effect, but art that becomes science, transformed from one medium to another."
During the early stages of his career, Mr. McClanahan served as a designer for various organizations, including the Museum of Primitive Art and New York Medical College in New York City. He also maintained activity as a graphic designer for Columbia Records, Lester Beall Inc., George Nelson Company and the Public Library of Cincinnati of Hamilton County.
Mr. McClanahan produced and directed two documentary films. One on the traditional improvised music of New Orleans featuring the pioneer musician Chester Zardis, with Danny Baker and Milt Hinton and scholars Bill Russell and Alan Lomax. Conversations with Paul Rand featured the premier graphic designer on his philosophy about art and design. He has contributed multiple articles to various journals and his fine art has been exhibited at many group shows across the country, from the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City to The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, Stedelijk van Abbemuseum in Holland and others in England and Canada. Meanwhile, Mr. McClanahan's commissioned works have included business locations such as IBM, Textron Inc., Proctor and Gamble, Pepsi Cola Corporation, Chase Manhattan Bank and many more.
A student of the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Mr. McClanahan studied drawing, painting, sculpture and graphic design. He later pursued additional studies at Columbia University in New York. Mr. McClanahan is a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). A nonprofit organization, the AIGA is comprised of members of all communication design backgrounds, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, branding and identity.
Securing several grants from the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, Mr. McClanahan also received four faculty development funds from the RISD between 1986 and 1995 and one from the Rhode Island Community Foundation. He was honored with a Key to the City of Charleston, West Virginia, and to the City of Providence and was the recipient of a Famous Person Award at the Kanawha County Bicentennial in Charleston in 1988. A celebrated Marquis listee, Mr. McClanahan has been included in the 24th edition of Who's Who in the East.
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