Kenneth Holditch, William Dunlap receive lifetime achievement awards from Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters

May 3—TUPELO — Two artists with Northeast Mississippi ties have received the prestigious Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (MIAL).

Kenneth Holditch and William Dunlap will be recognized for their contributions to the arts during the MIAL's 43rd Anniversary Awards Gala at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. Set for June 11, the annual event recognizes artists from across the state with a variety of awards for works written, performed or shown in the previous year.

"We are thrilled to celebrate our talented Mississippians—extraordinary artists, writers, and musicians that make our state a better place," said Sarah Frances Hardy, president of the board of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, in a written statement.

Born in Ecru, Mississippi, Kenneth Holditch grew up in Clarksdale, Vicksburg, and Tupelo, Mississippi. After graduating from Tupelo High School, he attended Southwestern University and graduated in 1955 with honors in English. He received his MA and PhD in English from the University of Mississippi. His was the first PhD granted at Ole Miss. He taught in the English department at the University of New Orleans from 1964 until his retirement in 1993.

Holditch is author of a play "Tennessee Williams and his Women," which was chosen for dramatic readings at Lincoln Center in New York. He was one of the founders of the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in New Orleans and in Clarksdale. He created and led the Literary Walking Tour of the French Quarter beginning in 1974. He is co-founder of the William Faulkner Society.

His many book publications include "Tennessee Williams and the South," "Galatoire's: Biography of a Bistro" with Marda Burton, and "The World of Tennessee Williams" with Richard Freeman Leavitt. For several years, Holditch published and edited the Tennessee Williams Literary Journal. He has written numerous essays about such authors as William Spratling, Lillian Hellman, John Kennedy Toole, and John Dos Passos.

Among his awards are the Southern Fellowship Award from Duke University, Louisiana Teacher of the Year, the Lifetime Achievement Award from Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Tennessee Williams Delta Literary Festival Award, and the Columbus, Mississippi Tennessee Williams Scholar Award. His in-depth talks are carefully researched and highly provocative. When he puts his notes aside, his extemporaneous words become a work of art, full of salient details and original anecdotes.

"There's no stopping him," writer Richard Ford said of Holditch. "He's been a fountain of good works for a long, long time. A person of his talents, and dedication to Mississippi, doesn't come along every day."

Dubbed "The Art Ambassador" by the late, legendary Julia Reed, Dunlap has distinguished himself as an artist, arts advocate, and educator during a career that has spanned more than three decades. His paintings, sculptures, and constructions are included in prestigious collections across the globe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Mississippi Museum of Art, IBM Corporation, the Rogers Ogden Collection, Arkansas Art Center, the United States State Department, and United States Embassies throughout the world.

He has had solo exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Academy of Science, Aspen Museum of Art, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Museum of Western Virginia, Albany Museum of Art, Cheekwood Fine Arts Center, Mint Museum of Art, Mississippi Museum of Art, and the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans.

Dunlap has received awards and fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Foundation for study and travel in Southeast Asia, Warhol Foundation, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art/RJR Nabisco Visual Artists Award, and the Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. He is an inspired speaker and has lectured on art-related subjects at colleges, universities, institutions, and professional conferences.

A native of Mathiston, Mississippi, Dunlap has an undergraduate degree from Mississippi College and an MFA from the University of Mississippi. He has taught at Appalachian State University in North Carolina and Memphis State University. He currently maintains studios in McLean, Virginia; Mathiston, Mississippi; and Coral Gables, Florida.

In addition to the Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award winners, numerous other Mississippi artists will be recognized during the June event. They include:

— Special Achievement: Patrick O'Connor for Look Away, Look Away

— Citation of Merit: Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Grassroots hosted by Bill Ellison

— Citation of Merit: Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Highway 61 hosted by Scott Barretta

— Fiction: Becky Hagenston for The Age of Discovery and Other Stories

— Nonfiction: W. Ralph Eubanks for A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape

— Life Writing: Teresa Nicholas for The Mama Chronicles: A Memoir

— Poetry: Joshua Nguyen for Come Clean

— Youth Literature: Angie Thomas for Concrete Rose

— Contemporary Music Composition: Christone "Kingfish" Ingram for 662

— Classical Music Composition: Steve Rouse for Where Beauty Persists

— Photography: Ashleigh Burke Coleman for Hold Nothing Back

— Visual Arts: Jennifer Torres for Garden Boats for Osage Park