Biography

Charles Gniech (b. 1962) served as Professor of Fine Art-Graphic Design at Joliet Junior College, where he created and led the Graphic Design program during the final nine years of his more than forty-year teaching career. Earlier, he served for fourteen years as Professor of Graphic Design, Animation, and Web design at The Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago and for a decade as Assistant Professor at Northern Illinois University. 

Throughout his career, Gniech maintained concurrent careers as an educator, art director, exhibition curator, and exhibiting painter. 

While teaching at the college and university level, Gniech held art director positions at Donovan & Associates, and VC Chicago, before landing a position as Senior Art Director for Hammacher Schlemmer. His design work generally focused on print media—magazine and catalog as well as photo art direction—leading studio productions and location shoots throughout the United States and in Europe. Concurrently, he kept an active studio practice, exhibiting paintings in solo and group exhibitions at galleries, museums, and universities across the United States. His work included in numerous public and private collections. 

From 2002-2013, while teaching at The Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago, Gniech served as Curator of the Institute’s galleries and acted as the Collections Curator for the Corporate Fine Art Collection. In 2013, acting as Curator-at-Large, Gniech launched The Art of Influence: Breaking Criminal Traditions, an exhibition utilizing nonthreatening art objects to allude to human rights issues—encouraging the viewer to consider alternative perspectives and begin a dialogue in an attempt to promote social change.  Gniech has participated in multiple panel discussions on these topics and has lectured extensively on his curatorial process. 

In March 2016, Gniech was a member of a four-person panel that presented a session titled Change Artists-Using the Arts to Leverage Change at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, 60th Session. In February of 2017, Gniech acted as a Session Chair at the College Art Association, 105th Annual Conference in New York, where the three-member panel defined the ability of fine art to confront social issues on a global scale. In October 2022, Gniech presented a session titled Staying in Touch with Reality: Human Rights Issues and Critical Thinking Skills at the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, NISOD Fall Virtual Conference.

Charles Gniech holds a Master of Fine Art degree with an emphasis in painting and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in illustration, both from Northern Illinois University. His paintings focus on meditative qualities originally inspired by the stone circles found throughout Great Britain. Having explored many megalithic sites over the past thirty years, Gniech embraces the peaceful serenity of the mystical structures—a serenity that is reflected in his work. His paintings have been exhibited in numerous gallery and museums throughout the United States and are included in the permanent collections of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Purdue University, and The Art Institutes Corporate Fine Art Collection. 

Gniech continues to blog about artists, galleries and his fine art experiences at: chicagofineart.blogspot.com