Kenneth Victor Young American, b. 1933

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Born in Kentucky, Kenneth Young had a career that began in the sciences. He studied and taught physics at Indiana University and chemical engineering at the University of Louisville. In the early 1960s, Young switched his studies to a pursuit of visual art, joining a circle of artists at the University of Louisville that included G. Caliman Coxe, Sam Gilliam and Bob Thompson. 

After moving to Washington, DC in 1964, he worked at the Smithsonian Institution for over 35 years as an exhibition installation designer. He was also an art instructor at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC. Young also had solo exhibitions at the Carl Van Vechten Gallery at Fisk University in 1973, and at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC in 1974. His paintings have also been included in exhibitions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery and the Washington Project for the Arts, and are in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Kenneth Young was associated in the early 1970s with the rise of the Washington Color School, and in 1969, had a solo exhibition at the Franz Bader Gallery in Washington, DC.  Young worked at the Smithsonian Institution for over 35 years in exhibition installation and design after studying and teaching physics at Indiana University and chemical engineering at the University of Louisville. He was also an art instructor at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC. 

His paintings have been included in exhibitions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corocoran Gallery and the Washington Project for the Arts. His 1973 painting, in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, was recently included in African-American Art, Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights and Beyond, their 2012-14 traveling exhibition and illustrated in the catalogue.

Source:
Mecklenburg/Powell pp. 230-231