Burton Callicott

(1907-2003) lived in Memphis
Mandorla #30, 1991
paint, paper, 26 x 19 x 34 inches, 2003.112.1

After graduating in 1931 from the Cleveland School of Art, Callicott returned to Memphis where he began working on floats and displays for Memphis festivals. During this time he was also working on a Public Works of Art Project mural in 1933 located in the Pink Palace Museum. Callicott was a founding faculty member of the Memphis Academy of Art (now the Memphis College of Art) in 1937. His works have been exhibited at the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, the Tennessee State Museum, the West Tennessee Regional Art Center, the Knoxville Museum of Art, the Carroll Reece Museum at ETSU, the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, and the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta. In 2000, the Tennessee Arts Commission chose Callicott to design a specialty license plate for which he placed a rainbow with the caption, “art is . . . a rainbow.”