Andrew Rush, printmaker, painter, sculptor, and teacher, was born in Detroit, Michigan on 24 September 1931 to Harvey and Mary Louise Stalker Rush. Rush completed his undergraduate studies with printmaker Lee Chesney at the University of Illinois and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honors in 1953.
After serving in the US Marine Corps, Rush studied printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky in the graduate program at the University of Iowa, earning his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1958. That same year he received a Fulbright Grant to study printmaking in Florence, Italy.
Rush was an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Arizona between 1959 and 1969, where he founded the printmaking program; and he was co-director of the Rockefeller Foundation Indian Arts Project between 1960 and 1964. He has been a visiting artist or an artist-in-residence at Ohio State University, the University of Arkansas, and Colorado College.
In 1968, Charles Littler, Hazel Archer, and Rush helped found the arts community of Rancho Linda Visa by converting a defunct dude ranch in Oracle, Arizona. Fifty years later it is still a thriving arts community.
Andrew Rush has garnered the Seattle Art Museum’s International Printmakers Award in 1963, and a Purchase Award at the Brooklyn Museum Biennial in 1964.
A retrospective exhibition A Physical Art: The Intaglio Prints of Andrew Rush, 1957-1997 was mounted in 2004 at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson. His work is in the collections of the Uffizi Museum, Florence; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum, Texas; Fort Worth Museum, Texas; Seattle Art Museum; the Free Library of Philadelphia; and the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
In 1992, Rush founded The Drawing Studio with a core group of Tucson artists. Twenty-five years later it is nonprofit organization that serves thousands of people a year through classes and workshops. The following quote is from the website of The Drawing Studio: "I consider the study and practice of drawing from observation to be the foundation of visual intelligence, a domain almost totally neglected by conventional education. At The Drawing Studio, I take great pleasure in working with people from all walks of life who bring incredible experience and richness to the study of art – a richness that informs their visual expression once they have the tools and practices to inform their work. As a teaching artist, I am exploring how to broaden each person’s notion of what drawing can be, and match the right practices to the unique skills of each student. In my Words and Images course offerings, I am interested in the art skills designed to relate to the new visual communication domains opening up worldwide."