New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts
Encyclopedia
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
.
The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts was founded in 1978 by Auseklis Ozols
Auseklis Ozols
Auseklis Ozols is an American painter and fine arts educator, based in New Orleans, Louisiana.Ozols was born in Latvia in 1941. He moved to the U.S...
, inspired by the model of Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The goal was to gather together artists and aspiring artists and teach Classical techniques, stressing working from life. Ozols was joined at the Academy's inception by Dell Weller
Dell Weller
Dell Weller is an artist who lives, works and teaches in New Orleans, Louisiana. He studied four years at the Art Students League in New York. After two years of study in Mexico, he returned to New Orleans. He developed a widespread reputation for his wildlife etchings. At present, he is working...
. Artist and philanthropist Dorothy J. Coleman helped establish the Academy as a stable institution, and it was incorporated as a non-profit institution in 1980.
"The ancient disciplines of painting, sculpture and drawing have always attracted unique people with intense awareness of their sensations through non-verbal media. The ancient academies were collections of such people who sought others like themselves, along with a place to share their ideas. Artists working in guilds or academies have accumulated a vast wealth of information, technical as well as aesthetic, over the centuries. Artists learned from their master and in turn, pass their knowledge to future generations. The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts strives to continue this legacy by providing the facilities for serious study of the fine arts.
Of paramount importance is the study of the human form in all its attributes and applications of the fine arts. Portraiture, landscape, sculpture and their corresponding technical disciplines are included in the course of study. The Academy believes that a reinvestigation of traditional aesthetic values forms the strongest foundation for eventual creative expression and stylistic development."
The Academy, located at 5256 Magazine Street in New Orleans, has teaching facilities, a gallery (locally known as the "Academy Gallery") and a framing shop, on Magazine Street
Magazine Street
Magazine Street is a major thoroughfare in New Orleans, Louisiana. Like Tchoupitoulas Street, St. Charles Avenue, and Claiborne Avenue, it reflects the curving course of the Mississippi River...
in Uptown New Orleans
Uptown New Orleans
Uptown is a section of New Orleans, Louisiana on the East Bank of the Mississippi River encompassing a number of neighborhoods between the French Quarter and the Jefferson Parish line. It remains an area of mixed residential and small commercial properties, with a wealth of 19th century architecture...
. The main Academy building is oriented to the compass points, enabling the painting studios to have exact north light year round.
The Academy teaching year is broken up into Fall, Spring and Summer terms, with the summer term being shorter in length. Each term, one can typically receive instruction on:
- Beginning and Intermediate Drawing
- Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced Still Life Painting
- Portrait Drawing
- Portrait Painting
- Life Drawing
- Life Painting
- Landscape Painting
- Figure Sculpture
- Portrait Sculpture
- Color & Design
- Art History
- Watercolor Painting
- Abstract Acrylic Painting
- Gouache Painting
There are also Life Studio sessions, in which anyone may pay $10 towards the cost of hiring the model, and use whatever medium they prefer to draw, paint, or sculpt from a live model. These sessions are on Fridays 9 am - 12 pm, and 1 pm - 4 pm, as well as on Monday and Wednesday evenings 6 pm - 9 pm.