Grand Central School of Art

The Grand Central School of Art was an American art school in New York City,[1] founded in 1923 by the painters Edmund Greacen, Walter Leighton Clark and John Singer Sargent. The school was established and run by the Grand Central Art Galleries, an artists' cooperative founded by Sargent, Greacen, Clark, and others in 1922.[2] The school was directed by Greacen, Sargent and Daniel Chester French and occupied 7,000 square feet (650 m2) on the seventh floor[3] of the east wing of the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Press accounts of the school's opening reception mentioned the following instructors: Greacen, George Pearse Ennis, sculptor Chester Beach, muralists Ezra Winter and Dean Cornwell, the illustrator and costume designer Helen Dryden, Nicolai Fechin, Julian Bowes and George Elmer Browne.[4]

The school had more than 400 students its first year and soon grew to 900, making it one of the largest art schools in the city. Greacen engaged Arshile Gorky as an instructor, probably the school's most prominent teacher. Another instructor was Harvey Dunn, whose comments were captured by a student during one five-hour class session and were published in 1934 in a slim volume titled An Evening in the Classroom. For some years the school held a summer session in Eastport, Maine.[5] After nearly 20 years of operation, the school closed in 1944.

The school has no relationship to the current Grand Central Academy of Art, despite the similarities in name and a shared humanist perspective. The academy, also in New York City, was established by the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America (ICA&CA), founded as two separate nonprofit organizations in 1991 and 1968.[6]

Notable alumni

References
  1. "400 Enroll in 6 Weeks; Grand Central School of Art Announces List of Instructors". The New York Times. November 23, 1924. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
  2. "Painters and Sculptors' Gallery Association to Begin Work". The New York Times. December 19, 1922. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
  3. "Terminal Fire Not in Art School". The New York Times. September 6, 1929. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
  4. "New Art School Opens: Reception Held in Studios Over the Grand Central". The New York Times. October 2, 1924. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
  5. "Art Activities Here, at Home, and Out of Town; In Massachusetts. In Connecticut. In Vermont. In Pennsylvania. The Carnegie International". The New York Times. September 16, 1928. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
  6. http://www.classicist.org/about-us/
  7. J. Marshall Guion (IV) (1976). Descendants of Louis Guion, Huguenot, of La Rochelle, France and New Rochelle, West Chester County, Province of New York: A Guion Family Album, 1654 to 1976. Guion. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
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