29 Notable alumni of Kansas City Art Institute
Updated: June 13, 2026 EliteDegrees
Kansas City Art Institute is ranked #5,991 in the world and #1,569 in United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 29 notable alumni from Kansas City Art Institute sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. Many individuals affiliated with Kansas City Art Institute won Nobel Prizes for Peace, in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Economics.
1. Ryan MacDonald
1977-. (aged 49)
writer
Ryan Alexander MacDonald is an American writer, sound and visual artist. He won the American Short(er) Fiction Award for his title story in 2012.
2. Shawn Brixey
1961-. (aged 65)
visual artist
university teacher
Shawn Brixey is an artist, educator, researcher, and inventor.
3. Barry Kooser
1968-. (aged 58)
painter
background artist
Barry R. Kooser is an American artist, painter, and educator who worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios between 1992 and 2003 as a background artist on films such as The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and as background supervisor on Brother Bear. After leaving Disney, he worked independently as a painter exhibiting and selling fine art in...
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4. Arthur Kraft
1922-1977 (aged 55)
sculptor
painter
muralist
Arthur M. Kraft was an American painter, sculptor and muralist. A native of Kansas City, Kraft was a member of the expressionist movement.
5. Edward Buk Ulreich
1889-1966 (aged 77)
painter
sculptor
Edward Buk Ulreich was an American artist. Born in Hungary, his work includes murals at the United States Courthouse (Tallahassee, Florida, 1936) completed in 1939. His work is also at the National Museum of American Illustration.
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6. Guy Maccoy
1904-1981 (aged 77)
teacher
painter
Guy Maccoy was an American artist known for his serigraphs.
7. Christopher Willits
1978-. (aged 48)
musician
Christopher Willits is a San Francisco-based guitarist, electronic music composer and producer, visual artist and scholar. His music is electroacoustic in nature, in that both analogue and digital sounds are meshed into one singular sound.
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8. Fatimah Tuggar
1967-. (aged 59)
visual artist
video artist
photographer
videographer
Fatimah Tuggar is an interdisciplinary artist born in Nigeria and based in the United States. Tuggar uses collage and digital technology to create works that investigate dominant and linear narratives of gender, race, and technology. She is currently an associate professor of AI in the Arts: Art & Global Equity at the University of Florida in the United States.
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9. Jim Mahfood
1975-. (aged 51)
comics artist
comics writer
writer
illustrator
visual artist
Jim Mahfood, a.k.a. Food One, is an American comic book creator.
10. Martin Arnold
1959-. (aged 67)
film producer
television producer
film director
Martin Arnold is an experimental filmmaker known for his obsessive deconstruction of found footage.
11. Robert Templeton
1929-1991 (aged 62)
illustrator
painter
Robert Templeton was an American artist. His work includes the civil rights collection "Lest we forget...Images of the Black Civil Rights Movement", highlighting seminal figures from the movement. Templeton painted the portrait of former President Jimmy Carter that is displayed in the Hall of presidents of the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery.
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12. Jim Suptic
1977-. (aged 49)
musician
guitarist
Jim Suptic is an American musician and entrepreneur, best known for being the guitarist for the rock band The Get Up Kids.
13. Ronnie Landfield
1947-. (aged 79)
printmaker
painter
Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, and Abstract expressionism), and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.
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14. Archer Prewitt
1963-. (aged 63)
comics artist
guitarist
Archer Prewitt is an American musician and cartoonist associated with the independent music scene in Chicago, Illinois.
15. Peregrine Honig
1976-. (aged 50)
painter
Peregrine Honig is an American artist. Honig's work is concerned with the relationship between pop culture, sexual vulnerability, social anxieties, the ethics of luxury, and trends in consumerism.
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16. Theo Parrish
1972-. (aged 54)
disc jockey
Theo Parrish is an American DJ and record producer based in Detroit, Michigan, and known for his genre-spanning DJ sets and unconventional house productions. He is an owner of the Sound Signature record label, and a member of the group 3 Chairs.
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17. Stefan Lindfors
1962-. (aged 64)
installation artist
designer
sculptor
Erik Stefan Lindfors, known as Stefan Lindfors is a Finnish industrial designer, interior designer, film-maker and sculptor. He attended high school at the Åbo Cathedral School in Turku in 1982, and then went on to study design at the University of Art and Design Helsinki, completing his studies in 1988.
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18. Sam Prekop
1962-. (aged 64)
musician
Sam Prekop is an American musician in the band the Sea and Cake. He also has released five solo albums.
19. William F. Nolan
1928-2021 (aged 93)
biographer
screenwriter
novelist
writer
science fiction writer
William Francis Nolan was an American author who was active in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, and crime fiction genres.
20. April Greiman
1948-. (aged 78)
graphic designer
designer
April Greiman is an American designer widely recognized as one of the first designers to embrace computer technology as a design tool. Greiman is also credited, along with early collaborator Jayme Odgers, with helping to import the European New Wave design style to the US during the late 70s and early 80s." According to design historian Steven Heller, "April Greiman...
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21. 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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22. Hugh Harman
1908-1982 (aged 74)
screenwriter
film director
animator
film producer
actor
Hugh Harman was an American animator, film producer, and film director. A veteran of the early Walt Disney studio and a key figure in the Golden Age of American animation, Harman and his longtime collaborator Rudolf Ising founded Harman-Ising Pictures in 1929, through which they created the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon series and set the foundation for what...
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23. Thomas Hart Benton
1889-1975 (aged 86)
illustrator
muralist
designer
cartoonist
architectural draftsperson
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter, muralist, and printmaker. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States.
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24. Chris Pitman
1976-. (aged 50)
keyboardist
guitarist
composer
Chris Pitman is an American musician best known for his involvement with the hard rock band Guns N' Roses. A multi-instrumentalist, Pitman is known to play keyboards, guitar and drums, in addition to his role as a lead or backing vocalist. Pitman currently fronts alternative rock band SexTapes and previously worked with such bands as Guns N' Roses, Lusk, Replicants...
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25. Walt Disney
1901-1966 (aged 65)
designer
inventor
film producer
producer
manufacturer
Walter Elias Disney was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards won (22) and nominations (59) by an individual. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and...
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26. Dennis Hopper
1936-2010 (aged 74)
film actor
visual artist
painter
television actor
director
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. He was considered one of the key figures of New Hollywood. He earned prizes from the Cannes Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards.
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27. Victor Papanek
1923-1998 (aged 75)
university teacher
teacher
designer
anthropologist
art theorist
Victor Josef Papanek was an Austrian-born American designer and educator, who became a strong advocate of the socially and ecologically responsible design of products, tools, and community infrastructures. His book Design for the Real World, originally published in 1971 and translated into more than 24 languages, had lasting international impact.
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28. John Steuart Curry
1897-1946 (aged 49)
painter
lithographer
John Steuart Curry was an American painter whose career spanned the years from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting rural life in his home state, Kansas. Along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, he was hailed as one of the three great painters of American Regionalism of the first half of the twentieth century....
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29. Robert Rauschenberg
1925-2008 (aged 83)
assemblage artist
performance artist
jewelry designer
visual artist
painter
Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artworks which incorporated everyday objects as art materials and which blurred the distinctions between painting and sculpture. Rauschenberg was primarily a painter and a sculptor, but he also...
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