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Earlier this summer, SVA President David Rhodes announced the appointment of Riccardo Vecchio as chair of the College’s MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program. A 1996 alumnus of the program and a Fulbright scholarship recipient when he was accepted in 1994, Vecchio succeeds founding chair Marshall Arisman, who passed away in 2022, And longtime MFA Illustration as Visual Essay faculty member David Sandlin, who served as acting chair in the interim while the College conducted a national search for the position. Vecchio has been an SVA faculty member since 1997, teaching drawing at the undergraduate level and in the Continuing Education Division. In 2003 he became a thesis advisor in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program and has taught second-year painting in the program since 2021.

“I have every confidence Riccardo will preserve Marshall’s legacy while leading the program into a new era,” President Rhodes says. “We had a large pool of well-qualified candidates and Riccardo stood out from the pack for his professional accomplishments, success as an educator and the vision he articulated for the program’s future.”

SVA Provost Christopher Cyphers says, “I am eager to work with Riccardo as he charts a new course for one of SVA’s oldest graduate programs. Illustration as a profession and a field of study is changing, and the search committee believed Riccardo has the experience and temperament to successfully guide the program through these changes.”

“Marshall Arisman left big shoes to fill, and I am honored to take the helm of the incredible program he created and from which I graduated,” Vecchio says. “My goal is to equip our students with the pictorial and intellectual skills necessary to enter an increasingly complex and difficult-to-define art and illustration environment and to withstand the challenges that technology will throw at them soon. It is essential we foster a diverse, supportive and inclusive community of fellow artists to help hone and define their personal visual language.”

Vecchio grew up in Italy and Germany, and first became aware of SVA when he saw reproductions of the College’s subway posters in the art and design magazines he collected. A painter and illustrator, he studied under Arisman and earned the Paula Rhodes Memorial Award upon graduation.

Throughout his wide-ranging career, Vecchio’s work has been featured in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York Magazine, La Feltrinelli Editore (Italy), Die Zeit (Germany), Rolling Stone, Harper’s and National Geographic. He has created vivid covers for Criterion Collection editions of films like Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, Jonathan Demme’s A Master Builder and Andrzej Wajda’s Danton, as well as work for several Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, and book covers for Penguin, Putnam and other publishers. His corporate clients have included The Verve Music Group, Adobe, FedEx and American Express.

As a recipient of a 2021 New York City Artist Corps Grant, Vecchio created “31 Degrees,” a mapping and mural project exploring the tree-coverage disparity among the city’s neighborhoods. The work was installed in the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library location last year. 

Vecchio recently took some time to talk about his vision for the future of MFA Illustration as Visual Essay at SVA.

Congratulations on your recent appointment! What do you most hope that students will take away from the program under your leadership?

It is essential to provide the students with the technical skills and analytical and intellectual vocabulary necessary to adapt to the fast-paced digital evolution. In this way, they can strengthen the presentation and impact of their artistic vision and face the challenges of the ever-evolving working landscape.

What is one of your goals for the department?

My long-term vision of the program is one of a more racially and economically inclusive and diverse student body. It would be a program with the best 20 students whose merit and talent, not their ability to pay, shine through.

By taking a proactive approach toward these goals now, we will ensure the program encourages robust and multifaceted artistic dialogues and secure the quality of the school for the future. Put another way, I believe it will hamper the artistic and personal growth of our students if we do not.

In order to equip our students with the pictorial and intellectual skills necessary to enter an increasingly complex and difficult-to-define art and illustration environment, they must have a solid understanding of their artistic vision. This will enable them to face the challenges that A.I. will throw at them soon. I believe in a diverse, supportive and inclusive community of fellow artists to help hone and define their personal visual language.

Developing a personal vision is a big part of the department. What has helped you build yours?

The pursuit of a personal vision is a lifelong task. It takes time to recognize that it is a unique voyage of trials and errors. A vision is the sum of our best skills and our weaknesses. Some artists find a defined voice early on, and others take many years to channel their interests. I belong to the latter group. What has helped me is to recognize my patterns of interest, and in so doing, I could find my voice and the visual language to express it.

How do you feel art and social engagement/activism can best work together?

Good design, art and illustration do not need social engagement/activism to be more relevant art. Good engagement/activism can be significant without good design, art and illustration. However, when those two disciplines meet and collaborate, each aiding the other in perpetuating a message, their impact is more powerful and long-lasting. They become greater than the sum of their parts. Pressing social and environmental issues give weight and urgency to an artist’s work, but they do not guarantee good work. Art and social engagement/activism are most successful when each discipline, disjointed from the collective effort, stays equally powerful. 

For more information about the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program at SVA, click here.