Nancy Fletcher Cassell was born in Lebanon, Tennessee and has lived and worked in the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky area since 1973. She received an MFA in Drawing from The University of Cincinnati (1979) and a B.S. from Middle Tennessee State University in Painting and Art Education (1970) and studied as a full time student at the Art Academy of Cincinnati (1974-75). Early in her career, she worked as a graphic designer (1970-1973), and taught drawing, painting and design at Mount Saint Joseph College

(1980-84). 

 

Cassell has received two residency fellowships to Yaddo and one to The Virginia Center for Creative Arts, as well as grants from Art Matters (1990), The Kentucky Arts Council (1987, 1994, 2002) The Southern Arts Federation NEA Regional Fellowship Program (1988), The Kentucky Foundation for Women (1988, 2003) and Summerfair of Cincinnati( 1987, 1995). Her work has received recognition and purchase awards from Hilton Kramer, Thomas Armstrong, Thomas M. Messer, Theodore F. Wolff, Patterson Sims and Clement Greenberg. 

 

Cassell has been given solo exhibitions at the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, The Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Ohio, The Weston Art Gallery at the Aronoff Center for the Arts, Cincinnati, Ohio and her work was exhibited in The National Drawing Invitational at The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas. She has also received The Dale Meyers Cooper N.A.A.W.S Bronze Medallion for watercolor.Her work is in the permanent collections of The Owensboro Art Museum, Owensboro, Kentucky, The Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Ohio, The Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, The Louisville Courier Journal, Cincinnati Bell and numerous other collections.

Recently, she was selected to participate in a video on Kentucky Painters titled “Looking at Painting”, for WKET public television. Her work was reproduced in, Drawing Space, Form and _Expression, published by Prentice Hall.  Reviews and articles about her work. have appeared in Dialogue, Art Papers, The Artists Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The New Art Examiner and New American Paintings.