New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting & Sculpture

Specialties

MFA, Certificate Program, Evening & Saturday Classes, Marathons, Pre-​College Courses, Summer Session

The New York Studio School is committed to giving a significant education to the aspiring artist that can last a lifetime. Our aim is to reveal to the entering student appropriate questions about drawing, painting and sculpture and to encourage them to work hard and think rigorously at all times, enabling them to construct an ethical and philosophical framework for their life’s work.

History

Established in 1964.

In September of 1963, an article appeared in ARTnews by painter and educator Mercedes Matter, which gave voice to the grievance of many art students who felt frustrated by the frantic pace and fragmented courses of contemporary art education. It criticized art education for what it had become, contrasting it with the character of what academies of fine arts and artists’ ateliers had been.

The article had the effect on her students of galvanizing them to create a school themselves, if she would help them. She agreed, and together they founded the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture.

The studios and ateliers on 8^th Street are the former site of the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s studio and home, which she transformed into the Whitney Museum of Art in 1931.