Clint Willour to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

Willour with the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Anne Wilkes Tucker

The unstoppable Clint Willour will receive the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Houston Fine Art Fair, (HFAF) which takes place September 9-12. Willour will be honored on Saturday, September 12, at 1-2pm in HFAF’s theater, with a VIP reception to follow.

Willour has lived and worked in Texas since 1970 and has been an uncanny presence at gallery and museum openings in Houston for decades (How can one man be in so many places at once?). Willour has been curator of the Galveston Art Center for more than 20 years; he helped found Art Houston and the Galveston Art Walk; and has been a leader of FOTOFEST International since its inception in 1984. He sits on 4 committees at the MFAH (including the prestigious acquisitions committee) and countless public and private art councils, panels and boards. Over the years, he has donated his art collection to the MFAH, valued at over $1 million (even though he has never earned more than $40k a year).

Says Rebecca Cohen, art critic for the Austin Chronicle, “Willour is the unsung hero of Texas art. I think Clint has done more for mid-career artists and arts institutions in the state than anyone else in Texas.”

Also being recognized at HFAF will be Michelle Swain Barnes, co-founder and executive director of the Community Artists’ Collective, who will receive the Illumination Award for Achievement in Arts Education on September 9, and Lester Marks, who will honored as Arts Patron of the Year on September 10.

(Image: Still from YouTube video “HCP Interview with Anne Tucker and Clint Willour.” Courtesy of Dory Michels.)