David Tammany

---

Coney Island Whitefish  acrylic on canvas

Statement:

“Life is not all shoot-shoot.”

        -The Hunchback Juggler in Terry Southern’s Candy-

Biography:

David Tammany was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1940. Tammany earned a BFA from Wichita State University (formerly the University of Wichita) in 1964. After completing his undergraduate degree he was awarded a fellowship to Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he completed the requirements for an MFA in 1966. At the time of his graduation, Tammany received Tulane’s Annual Award as Outstanding Graduate Student.

David Tammany began teaching in the Art Department at Eastern Michigan University in the fall of 1966. During his tenure at the University, Tammany served in both instructional and administrative roles, including Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs. In 1995 Tammany returned from an administration assignment to the Art Department as a Full Professor, where he now teaches design and painting classes for undergraduate and graduate students, and provides individual instruction to Master of Fine Arts Students.

Prior to 1966, Eastern’s Art Department consisted of approximately thirteen faculty members. Tammany was one of eight additional full time faculty members added to the Department in 1966 and, in the following years, Eastern’s Art Department grew to approximately thirty-seven faculty positions. During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Tammany and the other individuals in this exhibition - some as students, most as faculty - were instrumental in developing Eastern’s Art Department to the extent that it was recognized as a center for quality and originality in its students and faculty.

Coney Island Whitefish (detail)

During his career, David Tammany has shown widely throughout the United States, including exhibitions in Claremont, California, Kansas City, Missouri, Oklahoma City Oklahoma, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Mobile, Alabama, Sarasota, Florida, Covington, Louisiana, Little Rock, Arkansas, New Orleans, Louisiana, Topeka, Kansas, Wichita, Kansas, Columbus, Missouri, South Bend, Indiana, and in Windsor Ontario, Canada. Among his many solo exhibitions, Tammany has shown at the University of Missouri, Columbus Missouri; the Orleans Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, the Rubiner Gallery, Detroit, Michigan; the Forseyth Gallery, Ann Arbor, Michigan; the Kalamazoo Art Center, Kalamazoo, Michigan; the Lawrence Stevens Gallery, Detroit, Michigan; and the Lantern Gallery, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Among his awards, David Tammany received recognition for his work in the All Michigan Exhibition, Dewaters Art Center, Flint, Michigan; the Michigan Artists’ Annual, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Michigan (twice); the Michigan Graphics Exhibition, Bloomfield Art Association, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; the Annual Michiana Exhibition, South Bend Art Center, South Bend, Indiana; the First Gulf State Exhibition, Mobile Art Center, Mobile, Alabama; the Tenth Annual Kansas Designer-Craftsman Exhibition, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas; the Twenty-Third Annual Louisiana Art Exhibition, Louisiana Art Commission, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the Fifth Annual Oklahoma Exhibition, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and the Eighth Annual Delta Art Exhibition, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Additionally, David Tammany has received grants from the Michigan Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts to support his work.

Tammany lives on seven country acres outside of Ypsilanti with his wife, Rosina, his oldest grandson, Michael, Annabelle the fat dog, Marabel the old cat, and Gustav the mad cat, all of whom are visited regularly by the Tammany’s three children, six additional grandchildren and, on occasion, Jabba, the Bull Mastiff, Schaffer, the Pit Bull mix, Tiger, the replacement cat – the first Tiger being extremely flat and interred on the Tammany’s seven acre site, Max, the shih-tzu, and Edie the Jack Russell Terrier-who is seldom invited because of her abuse of amphetamines. This mixed group is surrounded as far as the eye can see by condominiums and new housing projects produced from a single, unimaginative mold – all of which arrived as a blight on the rural landscape after the Tammanys purchased their residence ten years ago.