October 17, 1985
CEDAR FALLS--Word has been received of the death on October 3 in Boston of Kenneth Lash, 67, head of the University of Northern Iowa Department of Art from 1970 through 1975, and director of UNl‘s Humanities program from 1976 until his retirement from that position in 1983. He moved to Cape Cod in 1983, "searching for a peaceful place to write and think." He taught art and literature courses at the Wisdom Institute in Hyannis, where "his courses were attended by students who enjoyed rigorous intellectual discipline, good writing, and ironic humor," (Cape Cod Times).

Lash was quoted in Who's Who in America: "He had great respect for those things in life which make us more human. He believed that one goes on creating one‘s own life throughout a lifetime, that one never stops studying the relation of art to life. The major life-giving principles of the human are kindness and humor. The latter requires activity of the mind, the former activity of the spirit."

Lash wrote the screenplay for the film "By Love Possessed," based on the James Gould Cozzens novel, and a book of stories, poetry, and essays called "A Lot for the Money." He contributed to The New Yorker magazine, was a contributing editor of the North American Review, and, for several years, was editor of the New Mexico Quarterly Review.

Lash was born July 17, 1918, in New Britain, Connecticut. He received a B.A. degree from Yale University in 1939, where he was named to Phi Beta Kappa, and an M.A. degree from the University of New Mexico in 1948, both with majors in English and minors in philosophy. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 through 1946 and studied at the Universite de Lille in France and received a Rockefeller Traveling Grant in the Arts for study in Latin America. He was a member of the English faculty at University of New Mexico, and chairman of the humanities department at the San Francisco Art Institute. He served as a consultant to the Carnegie Corporation, the New York State Council on the Arts, Educational Testing Services, and Sangamon State University. He was a consultant with the President's Commission on Mental Health in 1977- 1978.

EB Note: At the San Francisco Art Institute Kenneth Lash was an inspiring presence for the serious minded young artists. He drew them into the art of literature much as the elder masters at the school (Elmer Bishoff, Richard Diebenkorn, Frank Lobdel) helped them explore and realize their potential in the art of painting. He was a vital link for their understanding and the creative effectiveness of all the arts on the many ways of life.