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Art Students League of New York

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The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably-priced classes on a flexible schedule to accommodate students from all walks of life. Although artists may study there full-time, there have never been any degree programs or grades, and this informal attitude pervades the culture of the school. From the 19th century to the present, the League has counted among its attendees and instructors many historically important artists, and contributed to numerous influential schools and movements in the art world.

The League also maintains a significant permanent collection of student and faculty work, and publishes a quarterly journal of writing on art-related topics, which is entitled LINEA. The journal's name refers to the school's motto Nulla Dies Sine Linea or "No Day Without a Line", traditionally attributed to the famous Greek painter Apelles by the historian Pliny the Elder, who recorded that Apelles would not let a day pass without at least drawing a line to practice his art.

As of 2008, the League remains an important part of New York City art life.

History

Founded in 1875, the League's creation came about in response to both an anticipated gap in the program of the National Academy of Design's program of classes for that year, and longer-term desires for more variety and flexibility in education for artists. The breakaway group of students included many women, and was originally housed in rented rooms at 16th Street and Fifth Avenue. [1]

When the Academy resumed a more typical, but liberalized, program, in 1877, there was some sentiment that the League had served its purpose, but its students voted to continue its program, and it was incorporated in 1878. Influential board members from this formative period included painter Thomas Eakins and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Membership continued to increase, forcing the League to relocate to increasingly larger spaces.

In 1889, the League participated in the founding of the American Fine Arts Society (AFAS), together with the Society of American Artists and the Architectural League, among others. The American Fine Arts Building at 215 West 57th Street, constructed as their joint headquarters, has continued to house the League since 1892.[2] Designed in the French Renaissance style by one of the founders of the AFAS, architect Henry Hardenbergh (in collaboration with W.C. Hunting & J.C. Jacobsen), the building is a designated New York City Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The League's popularity persisted into the 1920s and 30s under the hand of instructors like painter Thomas Hart Benton, who counted among his students there the young Jackson Pollock and other avant-garde artists who would rise to prominence in the 1940s.

In the years after the World War II, the League continued to be a formative influence on innovative artists, being an early stop in the careers of Abstract expressionists, Pop Art proponents and scores of others including Cy Twombly, James Rosenquist, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Bontecou, Eva Hesse, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein.

The League's unique importance in the larger art world dwindled during the 1960s, partially because of higher academia's emergence as an important presence in art education, although the league continues to attract a wide variety of young artists at the beginning their careers; and its continued significance has largely been in the continuation of its original mission - to give access to art classes and studio access to all comers, regardless of their financial ability or technical background.

Other Facilities

From 1906 until 1922, and again after the end of World War II from 1947 until 1979, the League operated a summer school of painting at Woodstock, New York. In 1995, the League's facilities expanded to include the Vytlacil campus in Sparkill, NY, named after and based upon a gift of the property and studio of former instructor Vaclav Vytlacil.

Notable instructors and lecturers

Since its inception, the Art Students League has employed renowned professional artists as instructors and lecturers, including: Lawrence Alloway, Charles Alston, Will Barnet, Hugo Bastidas, William Behnken, George Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Isabel Bishop, Robert Brackman, Alexander Stirling Calder, Timothy J. Clark, William Merritt Chase, Herman Cherry, Terry Coyle, Kenyon Cox, John Steuart Curry, Stuart Davis, Jose de Creeft, Edwin Dickinson, Harvey Dinnerstein, Thomas Eakins, Michael Goldberg, Stephen Greene, George Grosz, Philip Guston, Robert Beverly Hale, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Eva Hesse, Charles Hinman, Hans Hofmann, Wolf Kahn, Morris Kantor, Rockwell Kent, Walt Kuhn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Gabriel Laderman, Ronnie Landfield, Jacob Lawrence, George Luks, Paul Manship, Reginald Marsh, Knox Martin, Mary Beth Mckenzie, William C. McNulty, Willard Metcalf, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Maxfield Parrish, Jules Pascin, Larry Poons, Richard Pousette-Dart, Abraham Rattner, Peter Reginato, Boardman Robinson, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Sloan, Isaac Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Theodoros Stamos, Harry Sternberg, Augustus Vincent Tack, George Tooker, John Henry Twachtman, Vaclav Vytlacil, Max Weber, J. Alden Weir, and William Zorach to name a few.

Notable alumni

The school's list of renowned alumni includes: Edwin Tappan Adney, Tadashi Asoma, Milton Avery, Will Barnet, Romare Bearden, Alan Brookman Beddoe, Brother Thomas Bezanson, Isabel Bishop, Nell Blaine, Leonard Bocour, Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, Stanley Boxer, James Brooks, Peter Busa, Paul Cadmus, Alexander Calder, Frederick Stuart Church, Claudette Colbert, Allyn Cox, Andrew Michael Dasburg, Dorothy Dehner, Burgoyne Diller, Sir Jacob Epstein, Marisol Escobar, Philip Evergood, John Philip Falter, Louis Finkelstein, Helen Frankenthaler, Charles Dana Gibson, William Glackens, Elias Goldberg, Michael Goldberg, Adolph Gottlieb, John D. Graham, Nancy Graves, Clement Greenberg, Red Grooms, Chaim Gross, Elaine Hamilton, Marsden Hartley, Al Held, Eva Hesse, Al Hirschfeld, Winslow Homer, Paul Jenkins, Donald Judd, Albert Kotin, Lee Krasner, Thomas Lamb, Ronnie Landfield, Alfred Leslie, Roy Lichtenstein, John Marin, Knox Martin, Mercedes Matter, Louisa Matthiasdottir, John Alan Maxwell, Jozef C. Mazur, Henry McBride, Walter Tandy Murch, Reuben Nakian, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Isamu Noguchi, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ray Osrin, Tom Otterness, Betty Parsons, Philip Pavia, Wendy Penney, I. Rice Pereira, Jackson Pollock, Fairfield Porter, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Frederic Remington, Norman Rockwell, James Rosenquist, Mark Rothko, Morgan Russell, Louis Schanker, Ethel Schwabacher, Maurice Sendak, Ben Shahn, Nelson Shanks, Nat Mayer Shapiro, David Smith, Tony Smith, Robert Smithson, Otto Stark, Frank Stella, Joseph Stella, Harry Sternberg, Clyfford Still, George Tooker, Cy Twombly, Jack Tworkov, Hervé Villechaize, Edward Charles Volkert, Stow Wengenroth, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Russel Wright, and many others.

See also

  1. ^ The New York Times, "Critic's Notebook: A School's Colorful Patina", by Holland Cotter,Published September 9, 2005
  2. ^ The New York Times, "Streetscapes: Art Students League at 215 West 57th Street; An 1892 Limestone-Fronted Building That Endures" by Christopher Gray, Published October 5, 2003
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