Tim Rollins studied fine art at the University of Maine and earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. After graduate studies in art education and philosophy at New York University, Rollins began teaching art for special education middle school students in a South Bronx public school. In 1984, he launched the “Art and Knowledge Workshop” in the Bronx together with a group of at-risk students who called themselves K.O.S. (Kids of Survival). The group has exhibited extensively worldwide at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the DIA Art Foundation, New York; de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the ICA Boston among others. Their work is represented in prestigious public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum of Art; the Tate Gallery London and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. A retrospective of the group’s 20 year career opened at The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College opening in 2009 and travelled to the Frye Museum in Seattle and the ICA Philadelphia later that year. The exhibition was accompanied by a fully-illustrated hardcover catalogue, co-published by the Tang Museum and MIT Press.