Marquis Who's Who Millennium Magazine

231 A Marquis Who's Who Magazine P hilip Peter Kovinick has possessed a love of research, particularly of the early American West, since his pre-teen years in Detroit. In early 1936, his dreams of visiting the factual and fictional regions depicted in books came true when his dad, a Detroit police officer, was given an early retirement due to an injury suffered while on duty. The family headed west, making stops at various places before reaching Venice, Calif. During the years following his graduation from Venice High School in 1942, Mr. Kovinick led a peripatetic experience. He worked at various jobs and made brief stops at several colleges. In the late 1940s, the Kovinicks moved to Northern California. Mr. Kovinick continued his education at California State University at Chico, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in 1954 and a Master of Arts in 1955. Soon thereafter, he began a long career at Lennox High School in Los Angeles, where he served as the social studies department chair. During these years, his weekends and vacations were spent at research centers and traveling from coast to coast for information on American artists. Mr. Kovinick, who has been listed inWho’s Who in American Art since 1976, has lectured at UCLA, The Getty Center and Palm Springs Desert Museum. His co-curatorships include exhibitions at the Laguna Art Museum and the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton, with the latter show featuring 56 noteworthy women who created works depicting the AmericanWest. He authored “The Women Artists in the AmericanWest” and “John Frost, a Quiet Mastery,” and co-authored “Contemporary International Problems,” a textbook for the Centinela Valley Union High School District, “The Art and Life of Edwin Roscoe Shrader,” and “An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the AmericanWest.” The latter book received the Western Heritage Award as Outstanding Art Book for 1998. Pulitzer Prize winner and Francis H. Parkman scholar Dr. WilliamH. Goetzmann praised the book in the foreword, stating “Their book represents one of the truly monumental research tasks of ours or any other time.” Philip Peter Kovinick Writer Los Angeles, CA