For those of you with scorecards, Tim Kerr’s first art award was winning a fire prevention poster contest in elementary school. Like any self-respecting artistic outcast in Texas, he moved to Austin after high school graduation where he has lived ever since with his wife Beth.
He earned a degree in painting and photography at the University of Texas in Austin and studied the latter with Garry Winogrand. Tim was awarded a Ford Foundation Grant while at UT. He won a slot two years in a row for the new songwriters contest at the Kerrville Folk Festival during this time as well.
After college graduation, Tim became involved musically and artistically with the early stages of the DIY (Do It Yourself) punk/hardcore/self expression movement. The idea that anyone could and should participate in self-expression burst every door and window inside of him wide open.
Like any self-respecting artistic outcast in Texas, Tim Kerr moved to Austin after high school. He attended the University of Texas and earned a degree in painting and photography. He studied with Garry Winogrand and received a prestigious Ford Foundation Grant. He loved art. He loved music. Never comfortable with labels and their restrictions, Kerr chose both. In college, he won a slot two years in a row for new songwriters at the Kerrville Folk Festival.
After graduation, he threw himself, musically and artistically, into the early stages of the DIY punk/hardcore/self-expression movement. He was a band member, produced, and recorded for such labels as Touch & Go, Estrus, Sympathy For The Record Industry, In The Red, Sub Pop, and Kill Rock Stars. He and his work were important in the birth of punkfunk, skaterock, grunge, and garage; Kerr was a founding member of The Big Boys, Poison 13, Bad Mutha Goose, Lord High Fixers, and Monkey Wrench.
Kerr was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame by popular vote in 1996. His first band, The Big Boys, was inducted in 2017.The Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle asked to record an oral history with him in 2000 and he has donated much of his personal archives to the Austin History Library. There is an upcoming documentary being made about him, and about the Big Boys.
His art career has followed as pioneered a path as his music. Kerr’s art is well-recognized on album covers, posters, skateboard graphics, and advertisements. A book devoted to his art has been reissued for multiple printings through Monofonus Press. His work is displayed nationally and internationally, in galleries such as PS1 in NYC, 96 Gillespie in London, Slowboy Gallery in Germany, Outre in Melbourne, Australia, and Beams in Tokyo, Japan.The summer of 2015, Tim had a solo show at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery. He was Artist in Residence at Void Gallery in Derry, Northern Ireland, AS220 in Providence, and I.A.M. in Berlin.