A memorial service for one of Mississippi’s most respected modern artists is set for Friday.

The memorial service for Andrew Bucci will be at 11 a.m. at St. Paul Catholic Church with visitation stating at 10 a.m. Bucci died in November after a brief illness. He was 92

His remains were cremated, and his ashes will be buried Friday in Cedar Hill Cemetery, said Mary Halford of Fisher Funeral Home.

At the time of Buccci’s death, the artist was widely renowned as the greatest living modern artist in the country.

Bucci’s work in visual art spanned eight decades and was often experimental — from his prominent use of dashes in his paintings to the recreation of many of his works in needlepoint.

In 2009, Bucci received the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Mississippi Arts Commission for lifetime achievement, and in 2012 he received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Lifetime Achievement Award.

Both times, Bucci was humble, saying that the organizations should have honored artist he considered far more deserving than himself.

His paintings have received national and international acclaim. “Figure in Green,” was the signature image on the commemorative poster for the 2014 USA International Ballet Competition, and his painting of a magnolia flower appears on the 5-cent postage stamp issued in 1967 for the 150th anniversary of Mississippi statehood.

Bucci graduated from St. Aloysius High School before attending Louisiana State University where he studied architecture and engineering. He took his first art classes from Mary Clare Sherwood at All Saints’ Episcopal School.

“When I finished high school I was still 16 and I wanted to go study art but they said no to that,” Bucci told The Vicksburg Post in 2012. “In those days boys studied engineering and girls went into education.”

In the 1930s, Bucci began studying with Belhaven College alumni Marie Hull in Jackson and continued to do so after he went to college.

When World War II came, Bucci was drafted and went into meteorology. That gave him the opportunity to study at New York University before going to France and England to serve as a meteorologist. The military experience allowed him to study at Académie Julian in Paris.

After the war, Bucci enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received a bachelor’s degree in fine art in 1952 and a master’s degree in 1954.

In 1956, Bucci moved to Maryland to work as a meteorologist for the agency that became the National Weather Service. Following his retirement, he stayed in Maryland until months before his death.

Yet he always felt connected to the Magnolia State.

“I feel like I’m a Mississippian, for better or worse,” Bucci said in 2012. “I did more down there than I have ever done here.”

Bucci’s work will be on display in Jackson for several months starting Tuesday.

Belhaven University will host the exhibit “Andrew Bucci: Rediscovered” May 26 though Aug. 29 in the university’s Bitsy Irby Visual Arts & Dance Center on the main Jackson campus. Admission is free.

The gallery is open from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.