NEW YORK—Students of realist art of The Grand Central Academy of Art (GCA) will be holding their first open studio event this week. The event, open to the public, will showcase an array of full-time and part-time student work, including drawings, paintings, and sculpture, offering a unique chance to see inside the daily life of an atelier.
“This exhibit began as an urge to share our studies in a spirit of community, encouraging relationships among artists working in a realist mode in New York,” wrote GCA student Anthony Baus in an email. “It is also seen as an opportunity to educate the general public, to give them insight into the working methods and practices of contemporary artists striving to acquire the foundation of a classical education.”
Founded by New York-based realist painter Jacob Collins, the Grand Central Academy of Art instructs students seeking a traditional art education. The academy models itself on the progressive methodology of historic ateliers. Each stage of drawing, painting, and sculpture fits into a larger curriculum built to give students the skills necessary to create classically inspired works.
“I hope that guests will begin to see the value of drawing and painting from life,” said Baus. “They will see each stage of the student’s progress beginning with carefully observed and rendered cast drawings from first year students... Students spend months studying light and other visual phenomena to inform what they are seeing and how to interpret it on paper. This study is a gateway into the ultimate goal of figure painting in color.”
The event has something to offer a lot to non-aspiring artists, too. For dabblers, art lovers, and the simply curious, the academy regularly offers an array of workshops and evening and weekend classes six days a week, giving artists an opportunity to draw or paint from the model with instruction from GCA core instructors and alumni.
According to Baus, GCA also sponsors lectures and holds Friday night “salons,” both of which are open to the public.
“The ’salons’ began this school year as an opportunity for artists to gather in an informal setting for dialogue and conversation of various art-related topics from the techniques of landscape painting to the dissection of master drawings,” said Baus.
