Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts is proud to announce that two of our faculty members and one of our alumni are among the 12 artists and architects elected to the National Academy of Design’s class of 2026, making up a quarter of this year’s inductees.
We congratulate sculptor Kendall Buster, a professor of Fine Arts; sound artist Stephen Vitiello, a professor of Kinetic Imaging; and alum and photographer Emmet Gowin (B.F.A. ’65), who were elected national academicians. The academy confers the honor for contributions to contemporary American art and architecture.
Founded in 1825 in New York City, the National Academy of Design is one of the nation’s oldest artist-led institutions. Each year, its members nominate and elect new academicians of visual artists and architects to the National Academy, a community of approximately 450 across the United States.
“Having three members of the VCUarts community elected to the National Academy of Design in a single year is an extraordinary testament to the high caliber of our faculty and alumni,” said Carmenita Higginbotham, dean of VCUarts.
“Kendall and Stephen show our students every day what it means to live a serious creative practice, and Emmet’s six-decade career is proof of what can begin in our classrooms. Their peers across the country have recognized what we are so fortunate to witness here on campus,” she said.
The three honorees work in very different ways.
Kendall Buster: Sculpture you can step inside
Buster teaches in the Sculpture and Extended Media Program. She builds sculptures that are both object and architecture, and they are often suspended from ceilings or designed so viewers can step inside. Her latest project, Calyces, is a cloud-like form about 30 feet long. She created it with South African artist Siemon Allen during a residency at NIROX sculpture park in South Africa. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Read more about Buster’s work in this article highlighting her career accomplishments.
Stephen Vitiello: Making space for sound
Vitiello’s election is a milestone for sound as a fine art medium. He is best known for recordings he made from the 91st floor of the World Trade Center’s Tower One during a 1999 residency. That work has been broadcast and exhibited internationally. He will be one of the first artists, and possibly the first, to contribute a work of sound to the academy’s permanent collection. In April, he was named one of 10 inaugural honorees of VCU’s Annual Research Impact Awards.
“For me, as a sound artist, I often fall outside the cracks,” Vitiello said. “I don’t fit in normal boxes.”
For Vitiello, listening is an art form. Read his story.
Emmet Gowin: Where it all began
Gowin’s photographs explore humanity’s relationship to the natural world. His subjects range from intimate portraits of his wife, Edith, and their family to aerial views of nuclear test sites. His work is held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, among many others. He taught at Princeton University from 1973 to 2009. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. Princeton University Press published his book Baldwin Street: Photographs 1966-1994 in May. He is planning a solo exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 2028. On Oct. 9, VCU will also recognize him as a VCU Alumni Star.
Gowin credits VCUarts with launching his career. He points to a required photography class and to Richard Carlyon’s 8 a.m. introduction to modern art.
Read how this class opened the door for Gowin to capture the world about in this article profiling his career.
“In just that one lecture, I had the feeling of recognition, that I could not have come to a better place, that I could not be studying with a better teacher,” Gowin says. “I hold those early teachers in reverence and in highest affection.”
On view in New York: A special exhibition featuring the work of the classes of 2025 and 2026 national academicians will be on view February 18 to May 15, 2027, at the National Academy’s gallery at 519 West 26th Street, 2nd floor, New York City.
