public reception & awards ceremony: Saturday, October 4, 6-9 p.m.
on display October 4-31
Paul Tikkanen was a contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and photographer born in Ashtabula in 1926. He was a graduate of Ashtabula Harbor High School and the Cleveland Institute of Art. Tikkanen was a 1957 winner of the Cleveland Art Museum’s May Show for his painting “Chipped Crystal.” He married his wife Norma Stenberg Tikkanen in 1958; Norma was born in Saybrook, Ohio. Paul and Norma traveled extensively during their life together, visiting Mexico, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Paul studied, created, and showed art around the world, and worked in the United States as a draftsman, carpenter, boiler operator, sign painter, commercial artist, and portrait painter. He and Norma renovated the Old Ninevah School in Geneva, Ohio into an art studio, and he later established a studio on Lake Road. Paul was devoted to Norma, and was her primary caregiver at the end of her life.
Paul Tikkanen hoped to see visual arts flourish in our area, and wanted to encourage and promote both established and rising fine arts painters in Northeast Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania. To help realize that goal, he left an endowment to the Ashtabula Arts Center Foundation to establish a painting competition. This competition, the Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize, is held annually every October. Prizes will be given in two categories, abstract and realistic. The 2026 prizes will award first place winners $15,000 and second place winners $6000. Honorable Mention prizes of $1200 are also awarded at the discretion of the jurors. Acceptable media for entries include gouache, fresco, encaustic, ink (sumi-e), oil, acrylic, watercolor, alcohol inks, tempora, spray paint, airbrush, and mixed media painting.
public reception & awards ceremony: Saturday, October 4, 6-9 p.m.
on display October 4-31
Paul Tikkanen was a contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and photographer born in Ashtabula in 1926. He was a graduate of Ashtabula Harbor High School and the Cleveland Institute of Art. Tikkanen was a 1957 winner of the Cleveland Art Museum’s May Show for his painting “Chipped Crystal.” He married his wife Norma Stenberg Tikkanen in 1958; Norma was born in Saybrook, Ohio. Paul and Norma traveled extensively during their life together, visiting Mexico, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Paul studied, created, and showed art around the world, and worked in the United States as a draftsman, carpenter, boiler operator, sign painter, commercial artist, and portrait painter. He and Norma renovated the Old Ninevah School in Geneva, Ohio into an art studio, and he later established a studio on Lake Road. Paul was devoted to Norma, and was her primary caregiver at the end of her life.
Paul Tikkanen hoped to see visual arts flourish in our area, and wanted to encourage and promote both established and rising fine arts painters in Northeast Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania. To help realize that goal, he left an endowment to the Ashtabula Arts Center Foundation to establish a painting competition. This competition, the Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize, is held annually every October. Prizes will be given in two categories, abstract and realistic. The 2026 prizes will award first place winners $15,000 and second place winners $6000. Honorable Mention prizes of $1200 are also awarded at the discretion of the jurors. Acceptable media for entries include gouache, fresco, encaustic, ink (sumi-e), oil, acrylic, watercolor, alcohol inks, tempora, spray paint, airbrush, and mixed media painting.
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