50 Notable alumni of Cranbrook Academy of Art
Updated: June 13, 2026 EliteDegrees
Cranbrook Academy of Art is ranked #7,571 in the world and #1,933 in United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 50 notable alumni from Cranbrook Academy of Art sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. Many individuals affiliated with Cranbrook Academy of Art won Nobel Prizes for Peace, in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Economics.
1. Lycia Trouton
1967-. (aged 59)
installation artist
Lycia Danielle Trouton is a United Kingdom-born Canadian visual artist, teacher, and curator. She is known for her "Linen Memorial", a tribute to those that died in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. Trouton resides in British Columbia, Canada, and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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2. Beth Katleman
1959-. (aged 67)
sculptor
Beth Katleman is an American artist known for porcelain assemblage sculpture cast from found objects. Her allegorical installations fall within the genre of pop surrealism, combining decorative elements, such as Rococo embellishments and 19th century Toile de Jouy wallpaper scenery, with satirical references to consumer culture, fairy tales and classic literature. Katleman's work is in private and institutional collections and...
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3. Karyn Olivier
1968-. (aged 58)
visual artist
Karyn Olivier is a Philadelphia-based artist who creates public art, sculptures, installations and photography. Olivier alters familiar objects, spaces, and locations, often reinterpreting the role of monuments. Her work intersects histories and memories with present-day narratives.
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4. John Beardman
1937-. (aged 89)
painter
John Beardman is a contemporary American artist. He is an abstract expressionist and a major contributor to “art as process” and "action painting" influenced by Willem de Kooning. His work has been the subject of several exhibitions in New York City, Louisville, Kentucky, Birmingham, Michigan, and Nova Scotia, Canada. Beardman has received numerous creative artist's grants and fellowships. He currently...
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5. James C. Harrison
1925-1990 (aged 65)
artist
James C. Harrison was a Detroit, Michigan artist based in Brooklyn, New York. His work is complex, layered and full of Jungian, religious and mystical references used to relay his internal battles and demons. Harrison drew inspiration from mythology, psychiatry, poetry, music, philosophy and artists of the past. His ever-evolving style - often equated to Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and...
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6. Blane De St. Croix
1954-. (aged 72)
sculptor
Blane De St. Croix is an artist best known for his monumental landscape sculptures and installations.
7. Carol Wald
1935-2001 (aged 66)
artist
Carol S. Wald was an American artist who was also widely known for her talents as an illustrator. Her collages and paintings appeared in Time, Fortune, and Ms, and on the covers of Business Week, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and Saturday Review.
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8. David Rowland
1924-2010 (aged 86)
industrial designer
furniture maker
designer
military personnel
furniture designer
David Lincoln Rowland was an American industrial designer noted for inventing the 40/4 Chair. The chair was the first compactly stackable chair invented, and is able to stack 40 chairs 4 feet (120 cm) high.
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9. Alice Kagawa Parrott
1929-2009 (aged 80)
ceramicist
artist
Alice Kagawa Parrott was a Japanese American fiber artist and ceramicist. She spent most of her adult life in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she established a reputation as one of the country's most important weavers, and opened one of Santa Fe's first shops devoted weaving and crafts.
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10. Walter Hamady
1940-2019 (aged 79)
artist
Walter Samuel Haatoum Hamady was an American artist, book designer, papermaker, poet and teacher. He is especially known for his innovative efforts in letterpress printing, bookbinding, and papermaking. In the mid-1960s, he founded The Perishable Press Limited and the Shadwell Papermill, and soon after joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he taught for more than thirty years.
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11. James Edmund Jeffries
1925-1997 (aged 72)
politician
James Edmund Jeffries was a U.S. representative from Kansas from 1979 to 1983.
12. Bruce D. Smith
1946-. (aged 80)
archaeologist
curator
anthropologist
Bruce D. Smith is an American archaeologist and curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History who primarily focuses on the interaction of humans with their environment, especially the origins of agriculture in eastern North America agricultural complex.
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13. Sonya Clark
1967-. (aged 59)
artist
Sonya Clark Listen is an American artist of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Clark is a fiber artist known for using a variety of materials including human hair and combs to address race, culture, class, and history. Her beaded headdress assemblages and braided wig series of the late 1990s, which received critical acclaim, evoked African traditions of personal adornment and moved these common...
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14. Frances Rich
1910-2007 (aged 97)
stage actor
sculptor
actor
film actor
Frances Rich was an American actress, artist, and sculptor. She was the daughter of actress Irene Rich.
15. Charles Pachter
1942-. (aged 84)
painter
sculptor
Charles Pachter OC OOnt LL D. DFA is a Canadian contemporary artist. He is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, designer, historian, and lecturer. He studied French literature at the Sorbonne, art history at the University of Toronto, and painting and graphics at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He holds honorary doctorates from Lakehead University, Brock University, the...
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16. Ward Just
1935-2019 (aged 84)
writer
novelist
journalist
war correspondent
Ward Swift Just was an American writer. He was a war correspondent and the author of 19 novels and numerous short stories.
17. Niels Diffrient
1928-2013 (aged 85)
architect
industrial designer
businessperson
Niels Diffrient was an American industrial designer. Diffrient focused mainly on ergonomic seating, and his most well known designs are the Freedom and Liberty chairs, manufactured by Humanscale.
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18. Anne Wilson
1949-. (aged 77)
installation artist
artist
Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist. Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, Internet projects, photography, performance, and DVD stop motion animations employing table linens, bed sheets, human hair, lace, thread and wire. Her work extends the traditional processes of fiber art (techniques such as stitching, crocheting, and knitting) to other media. Wilson is a professor in the Department of Fiber and...
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19. Ivan Krstić
engineer
Ivan Krstić is a Croatian computer security expert, currently working on core security at Apple Inc. Krstić was previously the director of security architecture at One Laptop per Child. He is a co-author of The Official Ubuntu Book.
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20. Robbie Buhl
1963-. (aged 63)
racing automobile driver
Robbie Buhl is an American former race car driver who competed in the Indy Racing League. He was a color commentator for the IndyCar races on Versus. In 2016, Robbie, along with his brother Tom Buhl, started Buhl Sport Detroit, a motorsports marketing company, professional race team, and teen driving program based in Detroit, Michigan.
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21. Olga de Amaral
1932-. (aged 94)
designer
textile artist
weaver
Olga de Amaral is a Colombian textile and visual artist known for her large-scale abstract works made with fibers and covered in gold and/or silver leaf. She was one of the few artists from South America internationally known for her work in fiber art during the 1960s and ‘70s. She lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia.
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22. Bing Gordon
1950-. (aged 76)
engineer
William "Bing" Gordon is a video game executive and technology venture capitalist. He served ten years as Chief Creative Officer of video game publisher and developer Electronic Arts prior to his current partnership with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). He was a founding director of Audible.com and has served on several high-profile Boards of Directors including Amazon, Ngmoco, Duolingo,...
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23. Rob Edwards
1963-. (aged 63)
screenwriter
Rob Edwards is an American television and feature film screenwriter and producer. His writing includes the Disney animated feature films Treasure Planet and The Princess and the Frog, both of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In 2009, along with Ron Clements and John Musker, Edwards was awarded the Best Screenplay award from the African-American...
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24. Jack Lenor Larsen
1927-2020 (aged 93)
artist
textile artist
designer
textile designer
collector
Jack Lenor Larsen was an American textile designer, author, collector and promoter of traditional and contemporary craftsmanship. He was noted for bringing fabric patterns and textiles to go with modernist architecture and furnishings. Some of his works are part of permanent collections at museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago,...
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25. David Trott
1960-. (aged 66)
lawyer
business executive
politician
David Alan Trott is an American attorney and retired politician who served as the U.S. representative from Michigan's 11th congressional district from 2015 to 2019. He was a member of the Republican Party, but has since become an independent.
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26. Michael Barone
1944-. (aged 82)
journalist
Michael D. Barone is an American conservative political analyst, historian, pundit and journalist. He is best known as the principal author of The Almanac of American Politics.
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27. Harry Bertoia
1915-1978 (aged 63)
sculptor
jewelry designer
artist
musician
painter
Harry Bertoia, son of Giuseppe Antonio Bertoia and Maria Secunda Mussio, was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture designer.
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28. Todd A. Kessler
1979-. (aged 47)
screenwriter
showrunner
film director
television producer
Todd A. Kessler is an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer and director.
29. Edmund White
1940-2025 (aged 85)
university teacher
memoirist
biographer
writer
playwright
Edmund Valentine White III was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and essayist. A pioneering figure in LGBTQ and especially gay literature after the Stonewall riots, he wrote with rare candor about gay identity, relationships, and sex. His work emerged as part of an increasingly solidified and visible LGBTQ community, helping to reshape public narratives at a time when coming...
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30. Pete Dawkins
1938-. (aged 88)
politician
American football player
Peter Miller Dawkins is an American business executive and former college football player, hockey player, military officer, and political candidate. Dawkins attended the United States Military Academy, where he played as a halfback for the Army Cadets football team from 1956 to 1958. As a senior in 1958 he won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and was named as...
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31. Natalie Zemon Davis
1928-2023 (aged 95)
screenwriter
university teacher
writer
historian
women's rights activist
Natalie Zemon Davis, CC was an American-Canadian historian of the early modern period. She was the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Princeton University. Her work originally focused on France, but it later broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. For example, her book, Trickster Travels (2006), views Italy, Spain, Morocco and other parts...
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32. Scott McNealy
1954-. (aged 72)
computer scientist
businessperson
Scott G. McNealy is an American businessman. He is most famous for co-founding the computer technology company Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim. In 2004, while still at Sun, McNealy founded Curriki, a free online education service. In 2011, he co-founded Wayin, a social intelligence and visualization company based in Denver. McNealy stepped...
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33. Thomas McGuane
1939-. (aged 87)
autobiographer
screenwriter
writer
novelist
short story writer
Thomas Francis McGuane III is an American writer. His work includes ten novels, short fiction and screenplays, as well as three collections of essays devoted to his life in the outdoors. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the NCHA Members Hall of Fame and the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame. McGuane's papers, manuscripts, and...
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34. Bill Prady
1960-. (aged 66)
film producer
television producer
screenwriter
William Scott Prady is an American television writer and producer known for co-creating and producing The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019) and The Muppets (2015–2016). He also served as an executive producer on Dharma & Greg (1997–2002), Good Morning, Miami (2003), and Gilmore Girls (2004–2005).
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35. Fumihiko Maki
1928-2024 (aged 96)
teacher
opinion journalist
university teacher
architect
Fumihiko Maki was a Japanese architect. In 1993, he received the Pritzker Prize for his work, which often explores pioneering uses of new materials and fuses the cultures of east and west. Maki died on 6 June 2024, at the age of 95.
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36. Daniel Ellsberg
1931-2023 (aged 92)
military officer
intelligence analyst
political activist
career soldier
writer
Daniel Ellsberg was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.
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37. Alexi Lalas
1970-. (aged 56)
musician
association football player
Panayotis Alexander Lalas is an American former soccer player who played as a centre-back. He is best known for his participation with the United States national team in the 1994 FIFA World Cup, where his appearance made him a standout player on the team with his distinctive long beard and hair. After the World Cup, he went on to become...
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38. Duane Hanson
1925-1996 (aged 71)
painter
installation artist
sculptor
photographer
Duane Hanson was an American artist and sculptor born in Minnesota. He spent most of his career in South Florida. He was known for his life-sized realistic sculptures of people. He cast the works based on human models in various materials, including polyester resin, fiberglass, Bondo, and bronze. His sculptures often provided political-social commentary and satire.
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39. Gyo Obata
1923-2022 (aged 99)
architect
Gyo Obata was an American architect, the son of painter Chiura Obata and his wife, Haruko Obata, a floral designer. In 1955, he co-founded the global architectural firm HOK (formerly Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum). He lived in St. Louis, Missouri, and worked in HOK's St. Louis office. He designed several notable buildings, including the McDonnell Planetarium and GROW Pavilion at...
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40. Nick Cave
1959-. (aged 67)
artist
fashion designer
writer
costume designer
sculptor
Nick Cave is an American sculptor, painter, dancer, performance artist, and professor. He is best known for his Soundsuit series: wearable assemblage fabric sculptures that are bright, whimsical, and other-worldly, often made with found objects. He also trained as a dancer with Alvin Ailey and often incorporates dance and performance into his works. His later sculptures have focused on color...
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41. William Talman
1915-1968 (aged 53)
screenwriter
stage actor
television actor
actor
film actor
William Whitney Talman Jr. was an American television and movie actor, best known for playing Los Angeles District Attorney Hamilton Burger in the television series Perry Mason.
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42. Selma Blair
1972-. (aged 54)
voice actor
television actor
actor
film actor
Selma Blair is an American actress. She is known for her roles in Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, The Sweetest Thing, and the Hellboy franchise.
43. Elliott Earls
1966-. (aged 60)
graphic designer
sculptor
Elliott Peter Earls is an American graphic designer, artist and one man band performance artist. He is an artist-in-residence and head of the graduate graphic design department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
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44. Bob Woodruff
1961-. (aged 65)
war correspondent
journalist
Robert Warren Woodruff is an American television journalist. Since 1996, he has served as a reporter for ABC News. Woodruff co-anchored ABC World News Tonight in 2006 with journalist Elizabeth Vargas. He was severely injured by an IED explosion during a reporting trip to Iraq that January, and he recovered over an extended period before returning to air.
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45. Dan Dickerson
1958-. (aged 68)
sports commentator
Daniel Hill Dickerson is an American sportscaster, best known for his current position as the lead radio play-by-play voice of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers on the Detroit Tigers Radio Network.
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46. Renée Elise Goldsberry
1971-. (aged 55)
actor
television actor
film actor
songwriter
stage actor
Renée Elise Goldsberry is an American actress and singer. Known for her roles on stage and screen she has received a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, and a Grammy Award as well as a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.
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47. Ann Romney
1949-. (aged 77)
homemaker
politician
Ann Lois Romney is an American author and philanthropist. She is married to politician and businessman Mitt Romney. From 2003 to 2007, Romney was First Lady of Massachusetts during her husband's tenure as governor.
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48. Alan Simpson
1931-2025 (aged 94)
lawyer
politician
Alan Kooi Simpson was an American politician from Wyoming. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a member of the Wyoming House of Representatives representing Park County, Wyoming from 1965 to 1977 and as a member of the United States Senate from 1979 to 1997. Simpson was Republican whip of the U.S. Senate from 1985 to 1995, serving...
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49. Patrick Brown
1992-. (aged 34)
ice hockey player
Patrick Walter Brown is a Canadian politician who has served as the 51st and current mayor of Brampton since 2018. He served as leader of the Official Opposition in Ontario and leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) Party from 2015 to 2018. Brown also represented the riding Barrie in the House of Commons as a Conservative from 2006 to...
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50. Napoleon Abueva
1930-2018 (aged 88)
stage actor
sculptor
Napoleon "Billy" Veloso Abueva was known as the "Father of Modern Philippine Sculpture" Through Proclamation No. 1539. He was proclaimed National Artist for Sculpture in 1976 when he was 46, making him the youngest recipient of the award to date.
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