Last week I learned of the passing of everyone’s favorite professor and mentor at the University of Hartford Art School, Dennis Nolan. Before he went, his daughter secretly organized one last assignment to his former students and colleagues, which was to draw and submit a small ear. Dennis was very particular about the anatomy of the ear, and teaching hundreds of artists how to draw the human ear better was a prominent part of his legacy of teaching.
When I heard about the collection of ears ahead of Dennis’s passing I felt a wave of grief, a rush of urgency, and a pressure on myself to draw something well-done and meaningful in a hurry. I wasted no time, drew my ear and wrote my heartfelt goodbyes immediately, but then second-guessed myself for days over whether the ear was good enough for this mentor that I wanted to impress…kind of like being back in college! With the help of some friends and former classmates, we decided that death waits for no one, and on-time is more important that perfect, so I put the ear in the mail. I’m glad I did. Retrospectively I’m pretty happy with it. The external structures of the ear are for Dennis’s legacy, the internal structures for my past nine years as a medical illustrator.
DENNIS’s OBITUARY
Dennis Arthur Nolan, known by his students as “the Wizard”, died at home August 16, 2022, surrounded by family. He was born October 19, 1945 in San Francisco, California to Helen Fortier Nolan and Arthur Nolan. He earned undergraduate degrees in both Painting and Art History, and a graduate degree in Painting from San Jose State University. Dennis was also an accomplished illustrator and watercolorist and began his career illustrating posters for San Francisco bands such as The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company. He was also a beloved and devoted teacher and a father figure to over 700 students. He astounded students by his ability to draw the figure at any angle out of his head, but he was especially known by his kindness, generosity, wit and wisdom and had an uncanny way of knowing just the right words to uplift and change lives forever. When he knew he was dying of Mantle Cell Lymphoma, he wrote to students, “One gains a good deal of perspective at times like these, and it is crystal clear to me that loving oneself and every living thing and every moment we breathe is not only the answer to our own fulfillment, but an answer to what ails the world. And the anatomy of the ear is very important”. He also wrote, “Keeping it simple and magical is the best way to travel. And the magic is always there if we take the time to notice it”. He believed that seeing beauty in everything was the salvation of the world and that we all have three choices each day and his was to make the world a better place.
Dennis wrote the curriculum for the newly initiated Illustration program at the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford in Connecticut in 1985, where he taught for thirty years as a tenured faculty member, earning the rank of Full Professor. After retiring from undergraduate teaching as Professor Emeritus of the Hartford Art School he continued to teach in Hartford’s Low Residency MFA in Illustration program as one of a team teaching duo launching the Thesis Project.
In addition to teaching he illustrated over thirty picture books, eight of which he authored. His many awards include both the SCBWI Golden Kite Honor Award for his book Dinosaur Dream, and the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for the book Fairy Wings, which he shared with his wife, author and illustrator Lauren Mills. His books include The Castle Builder, winner of the Prix de Zephir in France. He has illustrated T.H. White’s classic, The Sword in the Stone, and two of Bruce Coville’s retellings of Shakespeare plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet, along with numerous others, including Dove Isabeau and Wings by Jane Yolen. His most recent book, Dinosaur Feathers, received numerous awards.
In 2018, he authored the 200 page catalogue for the Keepers of the Flame, Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition, to accompany an exhibition he conceived and organized as guest curator for the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The exhibition debuted to appreciative audiences, bringing to light Dennis’s thesis on the unbreakable thread connecting American illustration to the roots of European painting through the long line of teachers, who have, through the centuries, passed along the wisdom, knowledge, and techniques of the ages to the next generation of creators. Dennis’s rigorous scholarship and fresh perspective on art history broke new ground.
Having lived in the Pioneer Valley for the last thirty five years with his wife, Lauren, he retired to Ashfield where he spent the last three years in its comfort and peaceful beauty. He is survived by his wife Lauren, and their daughter, Genevieve, his son, Andrew, grandson James, and granddaughter Holly, sister Colleen, California, and brother Liam.
A Celebration of his life will occur at the Hartsbrook School, 193 Bay Road, Hadley, Massachusetts on Sunday, Oct. 2, at 2 pm. In lieu of flowers, contributions may go toward the funding of the life size statue Dennis was helping his wife make of Sandy Hook victim, Catherine Violet Hubbard, for the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary, PO Box 3571, Newtown, CT 06470.
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