07 Mar 2014 Hal Gould Vision in Photography Award
This year we are pleased to honor former CPAC directors R. Skip Kohloff and Lisbeth Neergaard Kohloff with the 2014 Hal Gould Vision in Photography Award.
We salute their indelible impact on our regional photography landscape.
The “Hal Gould ViP Award” is given annually to people who have made significant contributions in the Western Region to raising awareness, value, and appreciation of the photographic arts.Its purpose is to perpetuate the principles and ideals that CPAC was founded on, and to honor Hal Gould, one of CPAC’s founders and former owner of Denver’s legendary Camera Obscura Gallery, and others who have made noteworthy contributions to the photographic arts in this region.
Biographical Information: Lisbeth Neergaard Kohloff and her husband, R. Skip Kohloff, retired from the board of CPAC in 2006 after more than 25 years of holding key leadership positions at the Center. Those included Skip’s 26-year tenure on the board (1980-2006), the final 18-years as board president, and Lisbeth’s 24-year tenure on the board (1982-2006), the last eight as Exhibition Coordinator. The Kohloff’s served all of those years as unpaid volunteers—hard to believe for two people whose collective efforts had such an indelible impact on our regional photography landscape.
R. Skip Kohloff and Lisbeth Neergaard Kohloff assembled numerous important exhibits, many of them at CPAC’s Boulder Street gallery, which was shared with the Carol Keller Gallery between 1998 and 2006 (CPAC returned there in 2013). Their projects included solo shows by internationally known photographers Jerry Uelsmann, Patrick Nagatani, and Betty Hahn, Colorado surveys such as “Visions” at the Emmanuel Gallery (1997), and international surveys – most notably “The Wall/The Fall,” an exhibition of contemporary Eastern European photography (1991). To support regional photographers they developed CPAC’s Personal Vision Award. Recipients included Gary Lynch, Loay Boggess, John Bonath, and David Sharpe.
Ms. Kohloff is a respected art historian. For many years, she was a member of the UC Denver faculty teaching history, criticism and theory of photography. Mr. Kohloff was an educator and mentor for a number of years at the Cherry Creek High School in Englewood, CO (1977-2001). He also taught at the Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY) and locally at Regis University and UC Denver. The couple exhibited their own photography frequently throughout the West and internationally. Individually, they have works included in many permanent collections, including the Denver Art Museum, University of Denver, CPAC, The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Both also represented CPAC as portfolio reviewers at Photo Americas (Portland, OR), Houston Fotofest, and Photo Lucida, also based in Portland, Oregon.
Skip’s lifetime of work was celebrated in “Déjà-View; A Retrospective Exhibition” at CPAC in May 2001, which was awarded “Best Photography Exhibition” by Denver’s Westword that year.
In 2005, they both resigned from the CPAC board and the Boulder Street gallery was vacated until CPAC returned there in 2013. In 2006, Skip and Lis received a “Best Friends of Colorado Photography” award in Westword’s “Best of Denver” issue. The award recognized their dedication to CPAC as the “backbone of the institution” who “promoted innumerable local careers and put together a star-studded roster of exhibits that featured some of the most famous photographers in the West.”
CPAC is proud to honor their commitment to promoting Southwest regional photography by presenting them with the 2014 “Hal Gould Vision in Photography Award.”