Kevin Cole received his B.S. from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, an M.A. in art education from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and an M.F.A. from Northern Illinois University. Within the last 32 years, he has received 27 grants and fellowships, 66 awards in art, 51 teaching awards. Cole has also created more than 45 public art works, including the Coca-Cola Centennial Olympic Mural for the 1996 Olympic Games.
He just received the Working Artist Fellowship from the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. On February 1, 2022, he received a Proclamation from the City of South Fulton proclaiming February 1, 2022 Kevin Cole Day. In December Mr. Cole received the 2020 Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities in the State of Georgia and the 2019 Nexus Award from the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta.
His artwork has been featured in more than 480 exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. Cole’s artwork is included in more than 4000 public, private, and corporate collections throughout the United States and abroad. Public collections include the new National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, The Georgia Museum, Athens, GA, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA.; William Jefferson Clinton Library, Little Rock, Ark.; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Ark.; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CN.; The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, La.; The David C Driskell Center University of Maryland at College Park; Dayton Institute of Art, Dayton, Ohio; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, Pa.; The Georgia Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, Ga.; Corcoran Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Tampa Museum in Tampa, Fla. Corporate collections include Bank of America, Charlotte, N.C.; IBM, N.Y. and King and Spaulding Law Firm, Atlanta, Ga. Private collectors include Michael Jordan and John and Monica Pearson of Atlanta.
