Victor Thomas Sullivan, Junior

Victor Thomas Sullivan, Junior, of San Diego, California, formerly of Little Rock and New York, New York, died Wednesday, June 14, 1984. He was an artist and a teacher, residing in San Diego, California. Victor is survived by his parents, Victor, Sr, and Dorothy, a brother, John Sullivan, of Winchester, Tennessee, and a sister, Maya Sullivan, of Los Angeles, California.

Victor, a graduate of Little Rock Central High, where the newspaper he edited, The Tiger, won National High School Newspaper of the Year, graduated from Columbia University (magna cum laude) in 1971 and Cooper Union in 1974. While at Columbia, Victor joined Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and served as President and landlord of the legendary frat house on 113th Street, supposedly where the embryo of the SDS was formed in the Sixties. After graduating, Victor served as artist-in-residence at schools in Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, California, and Oklahoma. In his final years he worked for the San Diego School District as an art teacher.

Victor's unique insight was expressed best from an article he wrote for Arts Magazine in 1974 titled, "Electron/Organism." In this article, Victor envisioned a future where computers in the future become like living organisms and serve as a new art medium (Arts Magazine, December, 1974). Victor's insight was legendary---he told this reporter in 1976, "One day he will be President," referring to Bill Clinton, who had just lost an election to Congress---defeated by John Paul Hammerschmidt. Victor and Clinton were born six months apart in rural Arkansas only seventy miles from one another. Clinton received a Rhodes scholarship, something Victor competed for; Victor received a scholarship to Columbia. The "Southern Irishman" is sorely missed.


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