Michael Preble
Michael Preble (1947---) though born in Tampa, Florida, calls New Orleans, Louisiana home. A graduate of the private day school Isadore Newman in New Orleans, his interest in art came after a major in marine biology did not suit at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In an art appreciation class with encouragement from the professor, Preble began the path to becoming an art historian. With a BA in Art History from Cornell, he received an MA from California State Dominguez Hills in Carson, California [1].
While at Cornell, Preble worked in the Johnson Museum of Art, interned at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. At the latter institution, he began the study of the artist William Baziotes (1912---1963). This focus resulted in a major retrospective Baziotes exhibit in 2003 at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Museum in Venice, Italy, where it was a natural fit for their mission. Preble continues as the Editor of the William Baziotes Catalogue Raisonné [2].
Preble’s museum career included positions at the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama; Portland Museum of Art in Maine; Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, Florida; Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock; Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, Virginia [3].
At the latter, Preble and friend, Betty Anglin, Professor of Fine Art and Art History at Christopher Newport University, met Sandra McKenzie, who assisted Anglin and Preble with curating An American Original: Margaret Lefranc, Fifty Years of Watercolors that was shown at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center and the St. George Art Museum, St. George, Utah in 2009-2010 [4].
Preble has a tandem career as an accomplished art photographer. His subject matter includes the Caribbean, the Orient, the American South, major European cities, and serial imagery [5].
He writes, “I have an eye for the unexpected and the weird; pattern and serial imagery; symmetry and heightened color.” [6]
Preble has shown at galleries throughout the Deep South and Mid-Atlantic states, and currently he is an exhibiting member and co-curator at the Artists’ Workshop Gallery, a coop owned and operated by 30 artists, in Hot Springs, Arkansas where he currently resides with his wife and vizslas.
[1] https://www.mpreble.com/about; and from personal correspondence with author and Sandra McKenzie.
[3] Personal correspondence.