Dr. Michael Kampen O’Riley (PhD, History of Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1969) is a Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina.           While working as a columnist for the Charlotte Observer, he shared in a Pulitzer Prize Journalism and Public Service given to the Observer in 1981 for the Observer’s columns devoted to the daily lives of their readers.  He has taught at the Philadelphia University of Art; the University of Florida; Yale University; Arizona State University; the University of North Carolina Charlotte; California Polytechnic Institute Pomona; and the University of Stockholm, Sweden.           He has authored seven books, published over 300 articles in news papers and magazines, and given over 10,000 lectures and guided tours through museums and historical sites in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. He is presently living in Asheville, North Carolina and writing text books, self-help books, and novels about Native America and the visual arts.           About his work, the author says, “My work puts special emphasis on the contextual character of the visual arts. The arts have always existed in many active give-and-take or autocatalytic relationships with the world around them. The arts absorb ideas from religion, philosophy, politics, society at large, and every other area of thought; forge their own forms of visual expression, and, in turn, they influence the world around them in ways that only the visual arts can do.”