Karen Kunc explores inventive color abstractions of the natural and human-fashioned world in her prints and artist books, creating ideas of ‘strange beauty’.

Kunc was born in Omaha, Nebraska.   She received her BFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1975, and her MFA from Ohio State University in 1977.  She is the Cather Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln where she has taught since 1983.  Her awards include: Fulbright Scholar Awards to Finland and Bangladesh; two National Endowment for the Arts awards; the 2007 SGCI Printmaker Emeritus Award; a Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Master Award; an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship; the 2016 Lincoln Mayor’s Art Award; the 2000 Governor’s Art Award.  Recent prizes for her work include: the Miniature Print Exhibition X, Vancouver, Canada; the Yerevan Print Biennial, Armenia; the Novosibirsk Print Triennial, Russia; Hida Woodcut Triennial, Takayama, Japan.  She has exhibited her color woodcut prints and artist books extensively nationally and internationally, recent invitational venues include: Paris, France; Tokyo, Japan; Maui, Hawaii; New York, NY; Venice, Italy; Santander, Spain; Krakow, Poland.; Austin, Texas.   Her work is in public collections including: the Museum of Modern Art; the Library of Congress; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Sheldon Museum of Art; Joslyn Art Museum; American Art Museum Smithsonian; Haas Arts Library Yale University; Stanford University; Jyväskylä Art Museum, Finland; Spencer Library University of Kansas; Portland (OR) Art Museum; Herbert E. Johnson Museum  of Art Cornell University.  She has taught workshops in Egypt, Italy, Finland, Poland, Japan, France, Mexico, Iceland, Spain; and she has lectured as a visiting artist to over 200 institutions. In 2014 she opened Constellation Studios as a creative work-site for print, paper, and book, inviting artists for residencies, workshops, collaborations, exhibitions.