ANN ARBOR—The Jon Onye Lockard Galleria of Fine Arts will open Feb. 14 on the second floor of West Hall at the University of Michigan. A dedication ceremony will begin at 6 p.m. Feb. 14. The Galleria, located in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, will be open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is free.

Lockard, a native of Detroit, began teaching art at Washtenaw Community College in 1969 on a part-time basis. But by 1970 he was employed full-time at WCC and part-time at U-M as part of U-M’s fledgling Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, where he continues to teach today.

At 14, Lockard worked as an apprentice for an outdoor advertising company where he gained skills in working on scaffolding, experience he put to work later in his work as a muralist. A graduate of Detroit’s Cass Technical High School, Lockard received his formal art education at Wayne State University and Meinzinger’s School of Art.

Lockard’s work is displayed across the country in private collections as well as through public murals in the U-M’s “minority lounges, ” Wayne State’s Manoogian Hall, and other locations in southeast Michigan.

Lockard is one of two U-M faculty members named to a committee that this spring will determine the design of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial planned for Washington, D.C. The other U-M faculty member is James Chaffers of the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

More detailed information about Lockard and his work is available on his Web site, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmlockaz/.

Jon Onye LockardWashtenaw Community CollegeJames Chaffershttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmlockaz/