New york studio school

DEFINITION

Founded in New York City in 1964 by Mercedes Matter, the curriculum was Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. A year earlier, she wrote an article for ARTnews titled What's Wrong with U.S. Art Schools? in which she criticised the phasing out of extended studio classes which served "that painfully slow education of the senses," which she considered essential. The article prompted a group of Pratt students, as well as some from Philadelphia, to ask Matter to form a school based on her ideas. The school was originally housed in a loft on Broadway and gained almost immediate support from the Kaplan Fund, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III and the Ford Foundation. It granted no degrees, had only studio classes and emphasized drawing from life. Early teachers, chosen by the students, included the artists Philip Guston, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Charles Cajori, Louis Finkelstein and Sidney Geist; the art historian Meyer Schapiro; and the composer Morton Feldman. The school continues to train emerging artists. Source; Wikipedia, Mercedes Matter