DOI Heft:
No. 102 (August, 1905)
DOI Artikel:The art students league, New York
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26960#0239
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T
HE ART STUDENTS LEAGUE,
NEW YORE
IN THE last issue of THE INTERNATIONAL
STUDIO we took occasion to set forth in
the department of school notes the awards made
this season under the various prizes offered to
pupils of the Art Students League, New York.
The mere record of this list occupied a full column
of these pages. Such a list, it may be said, is not
of great general interest. But the best pupils at the
League, as past experience has abundantly shown,
usually comprise a good proportion of those who
disappear from lists only to engage wider attention
separately. In the large number of prize and
scholarship winners of a season there may always
be a few who will later be familiarly known to all
who follow the progress of American art.
The League occupies a peculiar place among our
art institutions. National prominence or national
ambition always operates to make a metropolis
attractive. And in this city the League has steadily
widened its scope since its foundation in 1875 and
drawn into relationship with it an increasing num-
ber of artists who have already won their place, and
beginners who arrive to stand hopefully upon the
threshold. Glancing back over the record of general
art competitions for the last twenty years, such as
those held for example by the American Water-
Colour Society, the National Academy of Design,
the Society of American Artists, and the Pennsyl-
vania Academy of the Fine Arts, one will find
among the prize winners many owing allegiance
to the League, either as students or instructors,
.such as William M. Chase, John H. Twachtman,
Kenyon Cox, H. Siddons Mowbray, Irving R.
Wiles, Robert Reid, George De Forest Brush, C. Y.
Turner, Childe Hassam, Bryson Burroughs, Ed-
ward Simmons, Thomas W. Dewing, George R.
Barse, Jr., Willard L. Metcalf.
One of the causes of the school's remarkable
growth may, doubtless, be found in its method of
government. When, as is usually the case, a school
owes its origin to the beneficence of some patron
of art, it often happens that the direction and con-
trol of the funds is entrusted to a board of trustees.
This is proper enough, and a natural step in assur-
ing the devotion of the income to the purposes which
the giver had in mind. But the results in art in-
struction are not always particularly fortunate.
The League had the advantage, paradoxical as it
may sound, of starting without funds and without
responsibility to a beneficiary. A group of art
students, who felt the need of better opportunities
XL
ART STUDENTS LEAGUE
DRAWING BY W. M. CHADWICK
for the study of drawing and painting than coufd at
the time be obtained in any existing academy in
this country, came together in 1875 to share in the
privileges of daily life classes. A room was chosen
in a building on the corner of Sixteenth Street and
Fifth Avenue, and there life classes were instituted
for men in the morning and evening, and for
women in the afternoon. It is not surprising that
the group grew at such a rate that larger quarters
T
HE ART STUDENTS LEAGUE,
NEW YORE
IN THE last issue of THE INTERNATIONAL
STUDIO we took occasion to set forth in
the department of school notes the awards made
this season under the various prizes offered to
pupils of the Art Students League, New York.
The mere record of this list occupied a full column
of these pages. Such a list, it may be said, is not
of great general interest. But the best pupils at the
League, as past experience has abundantly shown,
usually comprise a good proportion of those who
disappear from lists only to engage wider attention
separately. In the large number of prize and
scholarship winners of a season there may always
be a few who will later be familiarly known to all
who follow the progress of American art.
The League occupies a peculiar place among our
art institutions. National prominence or national
ambition always operates to make a metropolis
attractive. And in this city the League has steadily
widened its scope since its foundation in 1875 and
drawn into relationship with it an increasing num-
ber of artists who have already won their place, and
beginners who arrive to stand hopefully upon the
threshold. Glancing back over the record of general
art competitions for the last twenty years, such as
those held for example by the American Water-
Colour Society, the National Academy of Design,
the Society of American Artists, and the Pennsyl-
vania Academy of the Fine Arts, one will find
among the prize winners many owing allegiance
to the League, either as students or instructors,
.such as William M. Chase, John H. Twachtman,
Kenyon Cox, H. Siddons Mowbray, Irving R.
Wiles, Robert Reid, George De Forest Brush, C. Y.
Turner, Childe Hassam, Bryson Burroughs, Ed-
ward Simmons, Thomas W. Dewing, George R.
Barse, Jr., Willard L. Metcalf.
One of the causes of the school's remarkable
growth may, doubtless, be found in its method of
government. When, as is usually the case, a school
owes its origin to the beneficence of some patron
of art, it often happens that the direction and con-
trol of the funds is entrusted to a board of trustees.
This is proper enough, and a natural step in assur-
ing the devotion of the income to the purposes which
the giver had in mind. But the results in art in-
struction are not always particularly fortunate.
The League had the advantage, paradoxical as it
may sound, of starting without funds and without
responsibility to a beneficiary. A group of art
students, who felt the need of better opportunities
XL
ART STUDENTS LEAGUE
DRAWING BY W. M. CHADWICK
for the study of drawing and painting than coufd at
the time be obtained in any existing academy in
this country, came together in 1875 to share in the
privileges of daily life classes. A room was chosen
in a building on the corner of Sixteenth Street and
Fifth Avenue, and there life classes were instituted
for men in the morning and evening, and for
women in the afternoon. It is not surprising that
the group grew at such a rate that larger quarters