The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

s, founded in

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 ...

in 1825 by

Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...

Asher Durand Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School. Early life Durand was born in, and eventually died in, Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eighth ...

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...

, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fine arts in America through instruction and exhibition." Membership is limited to 450 American artists and architects, who are elected by their peers on the basis of recognized excellence.

History

The original founders of the National Academy of Design were students of the American Academy of the Fine Arts. However, by 1825 the students of the American Academy felt a lack of support for teaching from the academy, its board composed of merchants, lawyers, and physicians, and from its unsympathetic president, the painter

John Trumbull John Trumbull (June 6, 1756November 10, 1843) was an American artist of the early independence period, notable for his historical paintings of the American Revolutionary War, of which he was a veteran. He has been called the "Painter of the Re ...

. Samuel Morse and other students set about forming "the drawing association", to meet several times each week for the study of the art of design. Still, the association was viewed as a dependent organization of the American Academy, from which they felt neglected. An attempt was made to reconcile differences and maintain a single academy by appointing six of the artists from the association as directors of the American Academy. When four of the nominees were not elected, however, the frustrated artists resolved to form a new academy and the National Academy of Design was born. Morse had been a student at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and emulated its structure and goals for the National Academy of Design. The mission of the academy, from its foundation, was to "promote the fine arts in America through exhibition and education."Historical Overview
National Academy of Design. In 2015, the academy struggled with financial hardship. In the next few years, it closed its museum and art school, and created an endowment through the sale of its New York real estate holdings. Today, the academy advocates for the arts as a tool for education, celebrates the role of artists and architects in public life, and serves as a catalyst for cultural conversations that propel society forward. According to the academy, its 450 National Academicians "are professional artists and architects who are elected to membership by their peers annually."

Official names

After three years and some tentative names, in 1828 the academy found its longstanding name "National Academy of Design", under which it was known to one and a half centuries. In 1997, newly appointed director Annette Blaugrund

rebranded Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investor ...

the institution as the "National Academy Museum and School of Fine Art", to reflect "a new spirit of integration incorporating the association of artists, museum, and school", and to avoid confusion with the now differently understood term "

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

". This change was reversed in 2017. * 1825 The New York Drawing Association * 1826 The National Academy of The Arts of Design * 1828 The National Academy of Design * 1997 The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Art * 2017 The National Academy of Design

Locations

The academy occupied several locations in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

over the years. Notable among them was a building on

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

and 23rd Street designed by architect

P. B. Wight Peter B. Wight (1838–1925) was an American 19th-century architect from New York City who worked there and in Chicago. Biography Wight's career "flourished in the 1860s and early 1870s in New York, where he developed a decorative, historicist ...

and built 1863–1865 in a Venetian Gothic style modeled on the

Doge's Palace The Doge's Palace ( it, Palazzo Ducale; vec, Pałaso Dogal) is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme aut ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

. Another location was at West 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.Cassell, Dewey, with Aaron Sultan and Mike Gartland. ''The Art of George Tuska'' (

TwoMorrows Publishing TwoMorrows Publishing is a publisher of magazines about comic books, founded in 1994 by John and Pam Morrow out of their small advertising agency in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Its products also include books and DVDs. List of magaz ...

, 2005), , p. 10 From 1906 to 1941, the academy occupied the American Fine Arts Society building at 215 West 57th Street. From 1942 to 2019, the academy occupied a mansion on

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping ...

and Eighty-ninth Street, the former home of sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

Archer M. Huntington, who donated the house in 1940. Currently, the National Academy of Design shares offices and galleries with the

National Arts Club The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and members club on Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the ''New York Times'' to "stimulate, foster, and promote publ ...

located inside the historic Samuel J. Tilden House, 14-15 Gramercy Park South.

Organization and activities

National Academy School of Fine Arts (48237025902)

The academy is a professional honorary organization, with a school and a museum. One cannot apply for membership, which since 1994, after many changes in numbers, is limited to 450 American artists and architects. Instead, members are elected by their peers on the basis of recognized excellence. Full members of the National Academy are identified by the

post-nominal Post-nominal letters, also called post-nominal initials, post-nominal titles, designatory letters or simply post-nominals, are letters placed after a person's name to indicate that the individual holds a position, academic degree, accreditation, ...

"NA" (National Academician), associates by "ANA". At the heart of the National Academy is their ever-growing collection. Academicians choose and contribute a work of their own creation, building upon the academy's distinguished legacy. Today, their permanent collection totals over 8,000 works and tells a singular history of American art and architecture as constructed by its creators. The Academy organizes major exhibitions and loans their works to leading institutions around the world, in addition to providing resources that foster scholarship across disciplines.

Notable instructors

Among the teaching staff were numerous artists, including

Will Hicok Low Will Hicok Low (March 31, 1853November 27, 1932) or Will Hicock Low was an American artist, muralist, and writer on art. Biography He was born at Albany, New York. In 1873 he entered the atelier of Jean-Léon Gérôme in the École des Beaux Art ...

, who taught from 1889 to 1892. Another was Charles Louis Hinton, whose long tenure started in 1901. The famous American poet William Cullen Bryant also gave lectures. Architect Alexander Jackson Davis taught at the academy. Painter

Lemuel Wilmarth Lemuel Everett Wilmarth (November 11, 1835 – July 27, 1918) was an American painter. He was a founder of the Art Students League of New York and a member of the National Academy of Design. He was professor in charge of the schools of the Nation ...

was the first full-time instructor. Silas Dustin was a curator.

Notable members

Annual Reception at the National Academy of Design, New York

Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and audi ...

Benjamin Abramowitz Benjamin Abramowitz (also known as "Ben Hoffman" during the late 1930s and early 1940s) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. First recognized for his contribution at age 19 as senior artist with the Federal Art Project of the Work ...

James Henry Beard James Henry Beard (April 22, 1812 – October 20, 1893) was an American painter who specialized in the genre of portraits. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Design in 1872. Early life Beard was born in Buffalo, New York on ...

* Edwin Blashfield * William Jay Bolton *

Lee Bontecou Lee Bontecou (January 15, 1931 – November 8, 2022) was an American sculptor and printmaker and a pioneer figure in the New York art world. She kept her work consistently in a recognizable style, and received broad recognition in the 1960s. Bont ...

Stanley Boxer Stanley Boxer (1926-May 8, 2000) was an American artist best known for thickly painted abstract works of art. He was also an accomplished sculptor and printmaker. He received awards from the Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Endowment for t ...

Walker O. Cain Walker O. Cain , FAIA, FAAR, NA (April 14, 1915 – June 1, 1993) was a prize-winning American architect. Biography Early life and education Cain was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Oscar C. Cain (1877-1954), a postal clerk for the rai ...

John F. Carlson John Fabian Carlson (May 5, 1875 – May 19, 1947) was a Swedish-born American Impressionist painter. Background John Fabian Carlson was born in Kolsebo in Västervik Municipality, Kalmar County, in Småland, Sweden. The Carlson family immigra ...

* Vija Celmins *

William Merritt Chase William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...

Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

* Colin Campbell Cooper *

Leon Dabo Leon Dabo (July 9, 1864 – November 7, 1960) was an American tonalist landscape artist best known for his paintings of New York, particularly the Hudson Valley. His paintings were known for their feeling of spaciousness, with large areas of t ...

Cyrus Dallin Cyrus Edwin Dallin (November 22, 1861 – November 14, 1944) was an American sculptor best known for his depictions of Native Americans. He created more than 260 works, including the ''Equestrian Statue of Paul Revere'' in Boston, Massac ...

William Parsons Winchester Dana William Parsons Winchester Dana (18 February 1833 – 8 April 1927) was an American artist who settled in France. Later he emigrated to London, and became a naturalised British Subject. His paintings were generally small, painted with oils on can ...

* Charles Harold Davis * Henry Golden Dearth *

Jose de Creeft José Mariano de Creeft (November 27, 1884 - September 11, 1982) was a Spanish-born American artist, sculptor, and teacher known for modern sculpture in stone, metal, and wood, particularly figural works of women. His 16 ft bronze ''Alice i ...

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...

William Henry Drake Sir William Henry Drake, , (29 September 1812 – 28 January 1882) was a British public servant and Colonial Treasurer of Western Australia. Drake was the son of John Drake of Exmouth, Devon, Deputy Commissary-General, by Maria, daughter of Geor ...

* Thomas Eakins *

Lydia Field Emmet Lydia Field Emmet (January 23, 1866 – August 16, 1952) was an American artist best known for her work as a portraitist. She studied with, among others, prominent artists such as William Merritt Chase, Harry Siddons Mowbray, Kenyon Cox and Tony ...

Herbert Ferber Herbert Ferber (1906 – 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionist, sculptor and painter, and a "driving force of the New York School." Background Herbert Ferber Silvers was born on April 30, 1906, in New York City. In 1923, he beg ...

Bruce Fowle Bruce Fowle is an American architect. He co-founded Fox & Fowle Architects in 1978 and is now Founding Principal Emeritus at FXCollaborative. Fowle's work ranges from high-rise, multi-use complexes to cultural institutions and private homes. Fo ...

Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...

Gilbert Franklin Gilbert Alfred Franklin (1919–2004) was an English-born American sculptor and educator. He was active in Providence, Rhode Island and Wellfleet, Massachusetts; and was best known for his public art sculptures. Early life and education Gilbe ...

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 monum ...

* Frederick Carl Frieseke * Sonia Gechtoff *

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...

* Paul Georges *

Arthur Hill Gilbert Arthur Hill Gilbert (June 10, 1893 – April 1970http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/ssdi/doc/news/112D8289724F81D4) was an American Impressionist painter, notable as one of the practitioners of the California-style. Today, he is remembered fo ...

* Aaron Goodelman * Hardie Gramatky *

Horatio Greenough Horatio Greenough (September 6, 1805 – December 18, 1852) was an American sculptor best known for his United States government commissions '' The Rescue'' (1837–50), ''George Washington'' (1840), and ''The Discovery of America'' (1840–4 ...

* Red Grooms *

Armin Hansen Armin Hansen (1886–1957), a native of San Francisco, was a prominent American painter of the en plein air school, best known for his marine canvases. His father Herman Wendelborg Hansen was also a famous artist of the American West. The young ...

* L. Birge Harrison *

Edward Lamson Henry Edward Lamson Henry (January 12, 1841May 9, 1919), commonly known as E.L. Henry, was an American genre painter, born in Charleston, South Carolina. Early life Though born in Charleston, by age seven his parents had died and Henry moved to live ...

* Itshak Holtz * Winslow Homer * Cecil de Blaquiere Howard *

George Inness George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter. Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...

* Jasper Johns *

Frank Tenney Johnson Frank Tenney Johnson (June 26, 1874 – January 1, 1939) was a painter of the Old American West, and he popularized a style of painting cowboys which became known as "The Johnson Moonlight Technique". ''Somewhere on the Range'' is an exampl ...

* Lester Johnson *

Wolf Kahn Wolf Kahn (October 4, 1927 – March 15, 2020) was a German-born American painter. Kahn, known for his combination of Realism and Color Field, worked in pastel, oil paint, and printmaking. He studied under Hans Hofmann, and also graduated fro ...

* Charles Keck *

Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, c ...

Greta Kempton Martha Greta Kempton (March 22, 1901 – December 9, 1991) was the White House artist during the Truman administration. Biography Kempton was born in Vienna and came to the United States in the 1920s. She studied at the Vienna Academy of ...

Everett Raymond Kinstler Everett Raymond Kinstler (August 5, 1926 – May 26, 2019) was an American artist, whose official portraits include Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.Chaim Koppelman * Leo Lentelli * Emanuel Leutze * Hayley Lever * Maya Lin * Frank Lobdell * Evelyn Beatrice Longman * Frederick William Macmonnies *

Knox Martin Knox Martin (February 12, 1923 – May 15, 2022) was an American painter, sculptor, and muralist. Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, he studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1946 until 1950. He was one of the leading members of the N ...

* Jervis McEntee * Michael Mazur * Gari Melchers * Alme Meyvis * Raoul Middleman *

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 ...

Henry Siddons Mowbray Harry Siddons Mowbray (August 5, 1858 – 1928) was an American artist. He executed various painting commissions for J.P. Morgan, F.W. Vanderbilt, and other clients. He served as director of the American Academy in Rome from 1902–1904. Biog ...

John Mulvany John Mulvany (c. 1839 – 1906) was an Irish born American artist best known as an artist of the American West who painted the first large (11ftx21ft) image of General Custer’s defeat by the Oglala Sioux Indians at Little Big Horn in 1876. ...

David Dalhoff Neal David Dalhoff Neal (October 20, 1838May 2, 1915), was an American artist. Early years David Dalhoff Neal was born to father Stephen Bryant Neal and mother Mary (Dalhoff) Neal, on Middlesex Street, in Lowell, Massachusetts. His grandparents were ...

* Victor Nehlig * Eliot Noyes *

Kate Orff Kate Orff, RLA, FASLA, is the founding principal of SCAPE, a design-driven landscape architecture and urban design studio based in New York. She also is the director the Urban Design Program (MSAUD) at Columbia University's Graduate School of A ...

Tom Otterness Tom Otterness (born 1952) is an American sculptor best known as one of America's most prolific public artists. Otterness's works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums around the world, notably in New York City ...

* William Page *

Philip Pearlstein Philip Martin Pearlstein (May 24, 1924 – December 17, 2022) was an American painter best known for Modernist Realist nudes. Cited by critics as the preeminent figure painter of the 1960s to 2000s, he led a revival in realist art. Biography ...

* I. M. Pei *

John Thomas Peele John Thomas Peele (1822-1897) was a British painter specializing in portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes. Born in Peterborough, Northamptonshire, Peele immigrated to America with his parents in about 1834. The family settled in Buffalo, Ne ...

* Judy Pfaff *

Renzo Piano Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2 ...

* William Lamb Picknell * Albin Polasek * Alfred Easton Poor * John Portman * Alexander Phimister Proctor *

Harvey Quaytman Harvey Quaytman (April 20, 1937 - April 8, 2002) was a geometric abstraction painter best known for large modernist canvases with powerful monochromatic tones, in layered compositions, often with hard edges - inspired by Malevich and Mondrian. ...

Andrew Raftery Andrew Stein Raftery (born May 22, 1962, in Goldsboro, North Carolina) is an American artist and educator, known for his paintings, burin engravings, and drawings on fictional and autobiographical narratives of contemporary American life. Biog ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

Benjamin Franklin Reinhart Benjamin Franklin Reinhart (1829 – May 3, 1885) was an American painter born near Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, known for his genre, historical, and portrait paintings. Biography Reinhart studied at the National Academy of Design in New York fr ...

* Paul Resika * Priscilla Roberts * Dorothea Rockburne * Norman Rockwell * Mario Romañach * Albert Pinkham Ryder * Robert Ryman * Augustus Saint-Gaudens * John Singer Sargent * Eugene Francis Savage * Emily Maria Scott * Richard Serra * Susan Louise Shatter * Lorraine Shemesh * Elliott Fitch Shepard * Rhoda Sherbell * Cindy Sherman * William Siegel * Hughie Lee-Smith * Nancy Spero * Frederic Dorr Steele * Theodore Clement Steele * Frank Stella * Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait * Katharine Lamb Tait * Jesse Talbot * Reuben Tam * Henry Ossawa Tanner * Edmund C. Tarbell * Louis Comfort Tiffany * Cy Twombly * Edward Charles Volkert * Robert Vonnoh * William Guy Wall * John Quincy Adams Ward * Harry Watrous * Carrie Mae Weems * Stow Wengenroth * Frederic Whitaker * Carleton Wiggins * Guy Carleton Wiggins * Anita Willets-Burnham * Frank Lloyd Wright * Jimmy Wright (artist), Jimmy Wright * Dorothy Weir Young * Milford Zornes * William Penn Morgan

References

External links

*
Virtual tour of the National Academy of Design
provided by Google Arts & Culture {{DEFAULTSORT:National Academy Of Design National Academy of Design, 1825 establishments in New York (state) Art museums established in 1825 Art museums and galleries in New York City Art schools in New York City Design museums in New York (state) Museums in Manhattan National Academy of Design people, Learned societies of the United States Academies of arts Organizations established in 1825 Venetian Gothic architecture in the United States Upper East Side Fifth Avenue 23rd Street (Manhattan) Clubs and societies in New York City