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2019 SESSION


HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 245
Celebrating the life of Richard Eugene Kevorkian.

 

Agreed to by the House of Delegates, February 11, 2019

 

WHEREAS, Richard Eugene Kevorkian, a respected contemporary artist and professor, died on August 6, 2018; and

WHEREAS, Richard Kevorkian was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and moved with his family to Richmond, where his father owned Tony’s Lunch in Manchester; and

WHEREAS, Richard Kevorkian attended Thomas Jefferson High School, spending his youth in and around Forest Hill and in high adventure on the James River, where he developed his love of fishing; he was an avid outdoorsman who tied his own flies and crafted his own bamboo fly rods, and he was particularly fond of fishing in the Smith River in Philpott and visiting friends on the Pamunkey tribal lands; and

WHEREAS, Richard Kevorkian was educated at Richmond Professional Institute, which is now Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), and at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, which is now California College of the Arts; and

WHEREAS, as chair of VCU’s painting and printmaking department, Richard Kevorkian played a significant role in establishing the university’s reputation as one of the top art schools in the nation; he exhibited his paintings extensively during a 60-year career, receiving grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Fulbright Scholar Program, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and

WHEREAS, Richard Kevorkian served as a panelist for various arts institutions, including the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the National Foundation for the Arts; his work was included in survey exhibitions such as “Southern Abstraction: Five Painters in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee”; “Thirty-Five Artists in the Southeast”; and “Painting in the South: 1564-1980”; he also exhibited nationally at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the National Academy of Design in New York, among others; and

WHEREAS, Richard Kevorkian was a gifted storyteller and cook who loved to walk Virginia’s fields and mountains; he enjoyed the subtle changes that each season’s light caused upon the land throughout the year; the lifelong Richmond resident travelled the world extensively, both for sport and as a visiting professor; and

WHEREAS, born of a father who was an Armenian genocide survivor, Richard Kevorkian’s heritage was important to him; he organized the inclusion of Armenian genocide history in Virginia's public school curriculum and promoted the creative arts in Armenia; and

WHEREAS, Richard Kevorkian will be fondly remembered and greatly missed by his wife, Salpy; his children, Salpi, Anna, Raffi, Ellina, and Soseh, and their families; and numerous other family members and friends; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the House of Delegates hereby note with great sadness the loss of Richard Eugene Kevorkian, a respected contemporary artist and professor; and, be it

RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of Richard Eugene Kevorkian as an expression of the House of Delegates’ respect for his memory.