Willard Whitson
Painter
Willard Whitson is Executive Director of KidSenses Children’s Museum in Rutherfordton. For more than forty years he has created innovative informal learning environments and programs at major institutions including the American Museum of Natural History, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and the National Children’s Museum. Much of his museum career was spent as an exhibit designer in natural history museums, and over the past two decades he has held leadership roles in children’s museums in Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Rutherfordton. Trained as a fine artist, Whitson earned an MFA in painting from the University of Georgia. Earlier in his career he was an arts educator and practicing painter, teaching painting, drawing, and design at institutions including Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. His work has been widely exhibited throughout the Southeast, including a solo exhibition at the Birmingham Museum of Art.
