The Grand Central School of Art was an American

art school An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-seco ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, founded in 1923 by the painters

Edmund Greacen Edmund William Greacen (1876–1949) was an American Impressionist painter. His active career extended from 1905 to 1935, during which he created many colorful works in oil on canvas and board. One of his works, a reproduction of which is at the ...

Walter Leighton Clark Walter Leighton Clark (1859–1935) was an American businessman, inventor, and artist based in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and New York City. Biography Among other achievements, in 1923 he founded with John Singer Sargent the Grand Central Ar ...

and

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

. The school was established and run by the

Grand Central Art Galleries The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmu ...

, an artists' cooperative founded by Sargent, Greacen, Clark, and others in 1922. The school was directed by Greacen, Sargent and

Daniel Chester French Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for his 1874 sculpture ''The Minute Man'' in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monume ...

and occupied on the seventh floor of the east wing of the

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

. Press accounts of the school's opening reception mentioned the following instructors: Greacen, George Pearse Ennis, sculptor

Chester Beach Chester A. Beach (May 23, 1881 – August 6, 1956) was an American sculptor who was known for his busts and medallic art. Early life Beach was born in San Francisco, California. He studied initially at the California School of Mechanical Arts ...

, muralists

Ezra Winter Ezra Augustus Winter (March 10, 1886 – April 6, 1949) was a prominent American muralist. Biography Winter was born in Traverse City, Michigan, trained at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1908, and the American Academy in Rome in 1914. Wint ...

and

Dean Cornwell Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

, the illustrator and costume designer

Helen Dryden Helen Dryden (1882–1972) was an American artist and successful industrial designer in the 1920s and 1930s. She was reportedly described by ''The New York Times'' as being the highest-paid woman artist in the United States, though she lived in ...

Nicolai Fechin , birth_date = , birth_place = Kazan, Russia , death_date = , death_place = Santa Monica, California United States , spouse = , known_for = Painting , orientation = , training = Imperial Academy of Arts Kaz ...

, Julian Bowes and George Elmer Browne. 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 Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of his ...

as an instructor, probably the school's most prominent teacher. Another instructor was

Harvey Dunn Harvey Thomas Dunn NA (March 8, 1884 – October 29, 1952) was an American painter and teacher. He is best known for his prairie-intimate masterpiece, ''The Prairie is My Garden'' (1950). In this painting, a mother and her two children ar ...

, 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. 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.

Notable alumni

* Frank Panabaker *

Charles Addams Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters, signing the cartoons as Chas Addams. Some of his recurring characters became known as the Addams Fa ...

Hans Burkhardt Hans Gustav Burkhardt (December 20, 1904 – April 22, 1994) was a Swiss-American abstract expressionist artist. Life and work Burkhardt was born in the industrial quarter of Basel, Switzerland. When he was three his father abandoned the famil ...

* Gerald Curtis Delano *

John Philip Falter John Philip Falter (February 28, 1910 – May 20, 1982) was an American artist best known for his many cover paintings for ''The Saturday Evening Post''. Early life Born in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, Falter moved at an early age with his family to F ...

Arnold Friberg Arnold Friberg (December 21, 1913 – July 1, 2010) was an American illustrator and painter noted for his religious and patriotic works. He is perhaps best known for his 1975 painting ''The Prayer at Valley Forge'', a depiction of George W ...

Mary Goldsmith Mary Scheier ( née Mary Goldsmith; May 9, 1908 – May 14, 2007) was a noted American ceramicist, and the wife and artistic partner of Edwin Scheier. Career Born Mary Goldsmith in Salem, Virginia, she moved to New York City in 1925 and studie ...

Walter Tandy Murch Walter Tandy Murch (August 17, 1907 – December 11, 1967) was a painter whose still life paintings of machine parts, brick fragments, clocks, broken dolls, hovering light bulbs and glowing lemons are an unusual combination of realism and abstract ...

* Stow Wengenroth *

Arthur Sarnoff Arthur Sarnoff (1912 – 2000 ) was an American artist and illustrator. Sarnoff was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1912. He studied at the Industrial School and the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. He was a member of the Society of I ...

Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...

Harold Von Schmidt Harold von Schmidt (May 19, 1893 – June 3, 1982) was an American illustrator, who specialized in magazine interior illustrations. Early life Born in Alameda, California in 1893, he was orphaned at the age of five. After a year in an orphanage ...

John Clymer John Ford Clymer (January 29, 1907 – November 2, 1989) was an American painter and illustrator known for his nature works featuring the American West. Early life and education Born in Ellensburg, Washington, Clymer first studied art thr ...

Jack Coggins Jack Banham Coggins (July 10, 1911 – January 30, 2006) was an artist, author, and illustrator. He is known in the United States for his oil paintings, which focused predominantly on marine subjects. He is also known for his books on space tra ...

F. Luis Mora Francis Luis Mora (July 27, 1874 – June 5, 1940) was a Uruguayan-born American figural painter. Mora worked in watercolor, oils and tempera. He produced drawings in pen and ink, and graphite; and etchings and monotypes. He is known for his pain ...

Alex Raymond Alexander Gillespie Raymond Jr. (October 2, 1909 – September 6, 1956) was an American cartoonist who was best known for creating the '' Flash Gordon'' comic strip for King Features Syndicate in 1934. The strip was subsequently adapted into m ...

James Gordon Irving James Gordon Irving (June 2, 1913 – August 15, 2012) was a commercial illustrator and painter, best known for illustrating the early Golden Guide series of nature books. Life and career Irving, who went by the name Gordon, was born in Ridge ...

* Frank J. Reilly *

Frank DuMond Frank Vincent DuMond (August 20, 1865 – February 6, 1951) was one of the most influential teacher-painters in 20th-century America. He was an illustrator and American Impressionist painter of portraits and landscapes, and a prominent teac ...

* Robert F. Gault AWS *

* Pruett Carter *

Ken Riley Kenneth Jerome Riley (August 6, 1947 – June 7, 2020) was an American professional football player who was a cornerback. He spent his entire career with the Cincinnati Bengals, first in the American Football League (AFL) in 1969 and then the ...

* Saul Tepper * James E. Allen *

Norman Saunders Norman Blaine Saunders (January 1, 1907 – March 7, 1989) was a prolific 20th-century American commercial artist. He is best known for paintings in pulp magazines, paperbacks, men's adventure magazines, comic books and trading cards. On occasio ...

Emmett Watson Emmett Watson (November 22, 1918 – May 11, 2001) was an American newspaper columnist from Seattle, Washington, whose columns ran in a variety of Seattle newspapers over a span of more than fifty years. Initially a sportswriter, he is primari ...

Bob Kane Robert Kane (born Robert Kahn ; October 24, 1915 – November 3, 1998) was an American comic book writer, animator and artist who co-created Batman (with Bill Finger) and most early related characters for DC comics. He was inducted into the comi ...

Clare Bice Albert Clare Bice (January 24, 1909 – May 18, 1976) was a Canadians, Canadian artist, curator, and children's book author/illustrator. Biography Born in Durham, Ontario, and raised in London, Ontario, London, he received a Bachelor of Arts ...

* Stuart Davis * Ethel Schwabacher *

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

* Roselle Osk * Molly Guion *

John Dehner John Dehner (DAY-ner) (born John Dehner Forkum, also credited Dehner Forkum; November 23, 1915February 4, 1992) was an American stage, radio, film, and television actor. From the late 1930s to the late 1980s, he amassed a long list of performan ...

References

External links

Online oral history with cartoonist Creig Flessel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grand Central School Of Art Culture of New York City Art schools in New York City American artist groups and collectives Education in New York (state) Educational institutions established in 1923 Educational institutions disestablished in 1944 Defunct private universities and colleges in New York City Arts organizations established in 1923

School of Art An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-second ...

1923 establishments in New York City