Kevin Cole is an award-winning international artist/educator born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Art Education from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Master of Art in Art Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Master of Fine Art in Drawing from Northern Illinois University at DeKalb, where he was a Rhoten A. Smith Scholar. 

Within the last 32 years, he has received 31 grants and fellowships, 66 awards in art, and 51 teaching awards. These include: 2025 Outstanding Retired Art Educator of the Year by the Georgia Art Education Association; 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from Salem Bible Church, Atlanta, GA; the 2022 Working Artist Fellowship from the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia; the 2020 Georgia Governor’s Award in the Arts; the 2020 Trail Blazer Award from Salem Bible Church in Atlanta; the 2020 Brenda and Larry Thompson Award from the Georgia Museum in Athens, GA; and the 2019 Nexus Award from the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta. Georgia Trend Magazine named him one of the Most Notable Georgians in 2023, and he was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2018. 

Teaching awards include Teacher of the Year at Camp Creek Middle School (1985); Teacher of the Year at Woodland Middle School (1990); Turner Broadcasting Super Teacher of the Year (1998); GAEA Secondary Art Educator of the Year (2003); NAEA Southeastern Region National Art Educator of the Year (2004); and Teacher of the Year at Westlake High School (2013), to name a few.

Cole’s artwork has been featured in more than 500 exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, and is included in more than 4800 public, private, and corporate collections. Public collections include the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Museum (Washington, DC); the Georgia Museum (Athens, GA); the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC); the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA); the William Jefferson Clinton Library (Little Rock, AR); the Phillips Collection (Washington, DC); the Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit, MI); the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT); the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans, LA); the David C Driskell Center (University of Maryland at College Park); the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art (Philadelphia, PA); the Arkansas Fine Museum (Little Rock, AR); the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, GA); IBM (White Plains, NY); the Arts & Science Center (Pine Bluff, AR); and the Dayton Institute of Art (Dayton, OH). Private collectors include Michael Jordan, Monica Pearson, and Terry McMillian.

Cole has also created more than 47 public artworks, including a 15-story mural for the 1996 Olympic Games. 

His artwork has been featured in more than 141 publications, including The Guardian Magazine in Paris, France; The Washington Post, Sculpture Magazine, The Union Tribune in San Diego, CA, and most recently Forbes Magazine.