Kurt Wenner's Impact

After Kurt Wenner had started creating his 3D pavement art, he organized and founded the first street painting festival at the Old Mission in Santa Barbara, California.

The festival which goes by 'I Madonnari', has and is still being held ever since, but it is not the only festival which was a result of Kurt Wenner's efforts; many festivals and events across the country were initiated by this 3D artist.

Wenner's work gained a tremendous popularity and many artists around the world found inspiration in Kurt's compositions and began to make their own 3D pavement art and brought forth some other great 3D artists such as Julian Beever, Manfred Stader, and Edgar Muller, to name a few.

What many may not know is that Kurt dedicated an entire month out of every year for a period of 10 years and taught over 100,000 students from elementary through university on how to work with chalks and pastels. For doing so, he received the Kennedy Center Medallion for this contribution in art education.

His extensive knowledge of Renaissance classicism not only led to the invention of 3D pavement art, but also to many lectures, seminars and workshops for some very famous institutions and organizations. On the list you will find the impressive names of the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, Toyota, and General Motors.

Kurt Wenner already had a great impact on the lives of many people and the world of visual arts and I don't expect this to stop soon. We will hear and mostly see much more of his creativity and I for one am looking forward to it!