Dr. Kenneth Marantz
- marantz.1@osu.edu
- Emeritus
Biography:
Born and raised on the East Coast during the Great Depression and privately schooled, my high school education included heavy doses of humanities and sciences; and I made the mistake of following the latter path to college. After some war service, I realized that the former area of study was more satisfying and finished with a liberal arts degree in economics. Soon thereafter I earned an M.F.A. in sculpture but found no job at the college level. Years of art teaching (k-12) pushing a wagon from room to room pointed to a career in art education by way of N.Y.U. First at Pratt Institute and then to the University of Chicago, and eventually to Ohio State in 1971 when they offered me the chairmanship of the Division of Art Education. The 1970s and 1980s were growth years and with the hard work of a young faculty we built on the strong foundation created by Manny Barkan to become a leading force in the field. However, university politics became too heavy a wet blanket for me and I accepted “early” retirement in 1991.
Retirement, however, has not meant days of fly fishing down in Florida. Rather the freedom from academic routines has encouraged me to continue to investigate the complexities of picturebooks. I’ve co-authored 8 books about them and published some 10,000 reviews (half of these with the involvement of my wife). Our comprehensive collection of some 20,000 picturebooks is housed at Columbus College of Art and Design where we have Honorary Professorships. Nor have I been able to cut myself loose from the entanglements of my past and continue to act as a curmudgeon in writings and occasional conference presentations in Art Education. It sometimes amuses me to note the wheel’s turning and the same issues reappearing after decades.
But there are still lots of questions to be asked and fresh answers to be created, even to many of the old questions. I am particularly taken by those relating to the roles in our lives of art and to its fluctuating definitions. Serving, when asked, on doctoral committees helps keep me from slipping too far out to sea.