Famous Artists School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Famous Artists School has offered correspondence courses in art since it was founded in 1948 in Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A. The idea was conceived by Albert Dorne as a result of a conversation with Norman Rockwell. He recruited Rockwell, Stevan Dohanos, Robert Fawcett, Ben Stahl, Harold von Schmidt, Al Parker, Austin Briggs, Jon Whitcomb, Peter Helck, Fred Ludekens, and John Atherton (all of whom were making more than US$50,000 a year at the time, roughly equivalent to US$425,000 in 2006[1]) to be the founding faculty of the school. Later faculty included cartoonists Al Capp, Milt Caniff and Rube Goldberg. Advisory faculty for the school later included Stuart Davis, Ben Shahn, Fletcher Martin, Ernest Fiene, Arnold Blanch and Doris Lee.
The original courses offered were Painting, Illustration/Design and Cartooning. The Cartooning course was dropped in the 1980s, though the Painting and Illustration & Design courses are still offered and are very popular. Each course consists of 24 lessons, with a new lesson mailed to the student upon completion of each lesson. The student completes the assignment and returns it to the school, where a professional artist critiques it and sends detailed suggestions back to the student. The original price for the two-year course (in 1948) was $300, payable in monthly installments, plus an estimated $11.55 for basic oil painting supplies.
Famous Artists School focuses primarily on realistic illustration and art, because it provides a solid grounding in the basics all artists and designers need to know, because it is teachable, and because it is what the public is interested in learning.
As of 2007, the school offers four courses: Acrylic Painting; Oil and Watercolor Painting; Career Art, Illustration, & Design; and a Course for Talented Young People. Pricing ranges from less than $500 for the Certificate and Young People's courses to less than $1,000 for the Master Courses. The Acrylic course is available for less than $400. Complete artists kits, including materials needed for an entire course, are available for $120 per kit.
The Famous Artists School was known in the 1950s and 1960s for its advertising on the back covers of comic books and on matchbook covers. The matchbooks had a drawing on the front cover, with the legend Draw me!. Information about the school was printed on the inside of the cover. These advertisements were often criticized as hucksterism. Despite this, the school is regarded as providing solid training in the techniques of representational art and illustration. Cartoonists Lyman Anderson, Jay Disbrown, Graham Ingels, and Bernie Wrightson are alumni of the school as are artists and illustrators Mark English, Bernie Fuchs, Robert Heindel, Franklin McMahon, Charles Reid, Dolph LeMoult, and Hank McLaughlin among many others.
The Famous Artists School was acquired by Cortina Learning International of Weston, Connecticut in 1981, and is one of that company's line of correspondence schools.
