Randall Exon was born in Vermillion, South Dakota, in 1956. He earned his B.F.A. in painting from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, and an M.F.A. at the University of Iowa. In 2003, the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, staged a solo exhibition of his work. He was awarded the Thomas Benedict Clarke Prize in the 179th Annual Invitation Exhibition of Contemporary American Art at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, New York in 2004. Exon’s work was featured in Visions of the Susquehanna, a traveling exhibition organized by the Lancaster Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, in 2008, and Haunting Narratives, a major exhibition at the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, in 2012. He is the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Professor of Art at Swarthmore College and has taught at the institution since 1982. Exon is also a continuing Fellow at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle, Co. Mayo, Ireland. Since the fall of 1997 he has returned each year for extended periods of time painting along the northwest coast of Mayo. Exon has exhibited extensively across the United States and the United Kingdom. The artist lives and works in Wallingford, PA.
