The Norman Rockwell Museum has nearly doubled its collection of American illustration art thanks to a donation of about 5,000 items from the archives of the Famous Artist's School correspondence course.
The Famous Artist's Course archives haven't been catalogued yet, but they include instructional diagrams, films, boxes of fan mail, photographic negatives, and artwork from all of the faculty members, including not only Norman Rockwell, but also Al Dorne, Robert Fawcett, Al Parker, and Peter Helck.
The Rockwell Museum promises to digitize the materials to make them accessible online for people all over the world. They're starting to work on assembling an exhibition of the materials.
In this audio podcast, WAMC's Joe Donahue interviews Norman Rockwell Museum's director Laurie Norton Moffatt about the Famous Artist's School bequest, and other issues and opportunities facing the museum.
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Norman Rockwell Museum Announces Expansion of Collection
7 comments:
Speculation is the new Truth. I had the thought, so it must be true. Never mind that there's no proof as I understand it. Beyond that, who really cares? Once you've reached that level of recognition you're not quite human, anymore.
Museum Directors are all Politicians, aren't they? And if any kind of publicity increases Museum attendance, that would appear to be good politics.
In 1965 I took the correspondence course from the Famous Artists School. Only many many years later did I appreciate the caliber of talent that made up the teaching staff. And... I still have most of the course material! Some of the illustrations are a little dated, yet the artistic principles and skills taught are timeless.
Famous Artists School is still operating:
http://arthomestudy.com/index.php
Don't know how it compares to the past, but I did see that Charles Reid, the very well known water colourist and and workshop teacher is currently listed as one of the Guiding Faculty.
In 1954, as a 14 year old high school student, I enrolled in the Famous Artists School. Although I have BA from a noted university, attended four years of study at a museum design school and numerous additional classes, the instruction from FA has been the best I have ever received. It has been the foundation of my career of 54 years as a professional advertising artist and fine artist.
My case was not an isolated one. Many of the better artists I have known were former FA students. One of my friends from high school who enrolled in the school when I did was Robert Heindel. Bob became a famous illustrator and eventually a board member of FA. Several others went on to wonderful careers.
Today it is difficult to realize the impact of advertising and editorial art in the 1950s and early 60s. The men who founded FA were the best in the business. I visited the school when I was a senior in college. The instructors working there were accomplished illustrators in their own right. Albert Dorne, the founder of FA spent an entire afternoon with me in quiet conversation. That afternoon gave direction to my career.
Paul Sullivan
"There should be pictures of food in the dining room and landscape in the living room," says my daughter, who is just starting her interior design course at our local university. So I asked her to browse to wahooart.com on the computer.
There she can choose good canvas prints to be made from a vast choice of Western art and she picked this one of fish by Braque, http://wahooart.com/Art.nsf/All-Popular-Artists for the dining room.
The certificate I earned from FAS was the best education I've been exposed to over the years.
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