Professor Roy Kotynek

As a youth Kotynek studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the classical tradition that saw him graduate from still-life study to live figure drawing. Later, he witnessed firsthand the transition from the beats to the sixties counterculture, and his frequent trips to New York City in the 1970s and the 1980s kept him in contact with the modern-art world. In 1967 he began teaching at Michigan State University at Oakland (later Oakland University), an experimental liberal arts college that drew many famous visitors like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Prints of Roy's portait of Abraham Lincoln
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln are available for sale at the Chicago History Museum as well as these locations:

Balcony Row Antiques, 216 Broad Street, Holly MI (810) 634-1400
 
Holly Art and Framing, 201 South Saginaw Street, Holly MI
 
Chicago History Museum, 1601 North Clark Street, Chicago, Ill, gift shop merchandiser (312) 799-2260

Click here to read the story behind Roy's portrait of Abraham Lincoln. 

Kotynek’s Northwestern University doctoral dissertation, “291: Alfred Stieglitz and the Introduction of Modern Art to America,” completed in 1970, was one of the first comprehensive studies dealing with this influential modern photographer and art impresario. From 1967 to 2004 Kotynek taught American intellectual and cultural history at Oakland University. His independent tutorials and courses on American cultural rebels deepened his knowledge and proved especially popular with the growing number of students interested in countercultures.

Click here to read how Roy was introduced to the "Beats" just before the Christmas of 1959.

John Cohassey

As an undergraduate at Oakland University, Cohassey took a tutorial with Kotynek on the history of American countercultures. Later, he joined his co-author as a consultant for the History Channel’s 2007 documentary, Hippies. Cohassey earned a master’s degree in history from Wayne State University in 1995. Since the early 1990s he wrote music CD liner notes, and over fifty entries on blues and jazz for Gale Research Inc., and his articles have appeared in the Detroit News as well as trade jazz and blues magazines. His first book, Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson (Wayne State University Press, 1998), won an award of merit from the Historical Society of Michigan.

John Cohassey has been cited as a source in numerous books, magazine articles and television programs. Click here for a list of books that have referenced works by John.

Writer/activist John Sinclair stated "John Cohassey performed a valuable service when he chronicled the glory years of Black Detroit in Sunnie Wilson's Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson. " Click here to view pictures from the book signing and read reviews about the book.

He is a professional musician and songwriter and performed with several well-known bluesmen, including legendary Chicago guitarist Otis Rush. As a music and cultural writer he has had lengthy conversations with famous jazzmen from Hank Jones to Kenny Burrell to Horace Silver.

Cohassey has visited New York, New Orleans, and Paris to research “ America’s Cultural Rebels.” His trips to these cities provided significant background for the book, as did his phone conversations with poet/activist John Sinclair and novelists Ken Kesey and Ed McClanahan.