D. Jeffrey Mims, born 1954, North Carolina, USA, is a painter and muralist working in the classical realist tradition. In 1976, Mims was awarded an Elizabeth T. Greenshields Foundation grant to copy masterworks in museums in England, France, and Italy. In 1981 Mims returned to Florence, Italy where he studied with the American painter Ben Long

Ben Long

Ben Long is an American painter and the grandson of noted artist McKendree Robbins Long.-Background:Reared in a family of artists, writers, professors, and university presidents, Long was as precocious in his artistic ability as he was eager to apply it...

 for another year.

In recognition of his mural Fresco at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Glendale Springs, NC, Classical America awarded Mims the Arthur Ross Award for "excellence and integrity in the application of classical ideals,"
Mims Studios was launched in 2000 as a school of fine art based on a 19th century Beaux Arts curriculum. In 2011, the private studio school closed and was relaunched as The Academy of Classical Design.

Academy

The Academy of Classical Design is an atelier

Atelier Method

Atelier is the French word for "workshop", and in English is used principally for the workshop of an artist in the fine or decorative arts, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students and apprentices worked together producing pieces that went out in the master's name...

, or studio school, offering training in the disciplines of drawing and painting. The curriculum includes: Drawing from the Charles Bargue

Charles Bargue

Charles Bargue was a French artist, a lithographer as well as a painter, who devised a drawing course.-Life and career:...

 Cour des Dessins, Tonal and Color Sketching, Drawing and Painting after Antique Plaster Casts, Old Master Copies, Grisaille

Grisaille

Grisaille is a term for painting executed entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome, usually in shades of grey. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider colour range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco...

 Painting, Portrait and Figure Drawing and Painting, Landscape Painting, Composition and Ornamental Design, and a Master Class in Mural Painting and Buon Fresco

Buon fresco

Buon fresco is a fresco painting technique in which alkaline resistant pigments, ground in water, are applied to plaster when it is still wet, as opposed to fresco-secco...

.

Selected Writings

2010 "Caput Mundi (Capital of the World)" Fine Art Connoisseur. July 2010. pp. 41 – 44 http://www.mimsstudios.com/fine_art_connoisseur.pdf

2006 "Slow Painting / A Deliberate Renaissance" Oglethorpe University Museum, Atlanta, Georgia—catalogue with contributed essay.

Awards

NC) in 1984. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Communion_Episcopal_Parish_(Ashe_County,_North_Carolina)]]

1976 - Elizabeth T. Greenshields Foundation grant

1984 - Classical America - Arthur Ross Award

2009 - The Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America - Alma Schapiro Prize - Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome

External links

• Academy of Classical Design Website
• The Classical Design Foundation
• "Caput Mundi; The Capital of the World" pdf Feature Article in Fine Art Connoisseur
• Alma Schapiro Award Page at the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America
• The Church of the Frescoes
• Ann Long Fine Art, Charleston, SC
• Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Co-Curator, "Slow Painting, A Deliberate Renaissance"
• Architects and Artisans, "A Classical Academy in Southern Pines"