The Butler’s Zona wins Portrait Society leadership award

THE VINDICATOR

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Portrait Society of America has named Louis Zona, executive director of the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, as the winner of its Leadership in the Arts award. The honor will be bestowed at the annual meeting of the PSA in April in Washington, D.C.

As part of the award, artist Judith Carducci will do a pastel portrait of Zona from 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday and Thursday in the parlor of the Butler North building, which is adjacent to the museum on Wick Avenue. The finished portrait will go into the collection of the PSA. The public is invited to watch the process.

Zona became the Butler’s director in 1981. His many accomplishments over nearly three decades include both the growth of the museum’s permanent collection, which now exceeds 20,000 individual works; and the expansion of the museum’s physical plant with the creation of Beecher Court/West Wing addition (1987), the Beecher Center South Wing (2000), and Butler branches in Salem (1991) and Howland (1996). Zona is currently a trustee of the PSA.

Zona’s national honors include the 1996 Gari Melchers Medal (presented by the Artists’ Fellowship of New York City, for outstanding contributions to American Art and Culture), and the 2004 Pastel Society of America Friend of Pastel Award (for championing the pastel medium).

The goal of the Portrait Society of America is to foster and enhance an understanding of the practice, techniques and applications of traditional fine art portraiture and figurative works. Past recipients of its Leadership in the Arts award are Dr. Alan Fern, former director of the National Portrait Gallery; Raymond Nasher, art patron and founder of Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas; Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, founder of National Museum of Women in the Arts; Marc Pachter, recently retired director of the National Portrait Gallery; and George Weymouth, founder and director of Brandywine River Museum.