Harold Zisla


Harold Zisla was an American abstract expressionist painter and art educator. In 1968 he became the founding chair of the Fine Arts Department at Indiana University South Bend, where he taught until his retirement in 1989.

Early life

Zisla was born in Cleveland, Ohio. During his youth he took art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and he studied with painter Paul B. Travis at Council Educational Alliance. In 1940 he won a scholarship to Young Artist Classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he took classes with Milton S. Fox, a painter and art historian who later served as editor-in-chief and vice president of Harry N. Abrams Inc., an art book publisher.
Zisla earned his high school diploma from East Technical High School in Cleveland in 1943. Following high school, he served in the United States Navy until 1946. He graduated from the Cleveland School of Art with a diploma in painting in 1950. The same year, he received his B.S. in art education at Western Reserve University. The following year he earned his M.S. in art education. He moved to South Bend, Indiana, in 1952, where he worked first as an industrial designer at Uniroyal.

Career

He directed the South Bend Art Center from 1957 to 1966, prior to accepting the professorship at what was then called the South Bend-Mishawaka Campus of Indiana University. Four-year degree programs had just been authorized in 1965, and Zisla had the responsibility of hiring new faculty.
Zisla was long active in service to community arts in the Michiana region. Following his tenure as executive director, he served on the South Bend Art Center board of trustees. He also served on the acquisitions committee of Purdue University, the Advisory Board of the Gallery at Saint Mary’s College, and the Mayor’s Committee to Build a Cultural Complex.
Zisla said about painting that it "should be, more than anything else, a liberation into the spirit of the artist, and to have presence, impact, dynamism, freedom from the trite, the contrived, the boringly dead." Paintings, he said, "must be alive.”
Harold Zisla married Doreen on August 13, 1946. They have two children, Paul Zisla and Beverly Welber.
The Harold and Doreen Zisla Art Scholarship has been established at Indiana University South Bend to support graduate and undergraduate students whose work displays an interest in experimental art.

Selected solo exhibits