Famous Artists School is an
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
correspondence course
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
institution, in operation since 1948. The school was founded by members of the New York
Society of Illustrators
The Society of Illustrators is a professional society based in New York City. It was founded in 1901 to promote the art of illustration and, since 1959, has held an annual exhibition.
History
Founding
The Society of Illustrators was founded on ...
, principally
Albert Dorne
Albert Dorne (February 7, 1906 - December 15, 1965) was an American illustrator and entrepreneur, and was co-founder of correspondence schools for aspiring artists, photographers, and writers. Dorne was co-founder of the Code of Ethics and Fair Pr ...
and
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 ...
.
History
The Famous Artists School was founded in 1948 in
Westport,
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
,
U.S.A.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
The idea was conceived by members of the New York
Society of Illustrators
The Society of Illustrators is a professional society based in New York City. It was founded in 1901 to promote the art of illustration and, since 1959, has held an annual exhibition.
History
Founding
The Society of Illustrators was founded on ...
(SOI), but due to the Society's legal status, could not be operated by it. SOI member
Albert Dorne
Albert Dorne (February 7, 1906 - December 15, 1965) was an American illustrator and entrepreneur, and was co-founder of correspondence schools for aspiring artists, photographers, and writers. Dorne was co-founder of the Code of Ethics and Fair Pr ...
led the initiative to set up a separate entity, and recruited the support of
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 ...
, who was also an SOI member. For the founding faculty, Dorne recruited
John Carlton Atherton
John Carlton Atherton (January 7, 1900 - September 16, 1952) was an American painter and magazine illustrator, writer and designer. His works form part of numerous collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art an ...
,
Austin Briggs
Austin Briggs (September 8, 1908 – October 10, 1973) was a cartoonist and illustrator. Born in Humboldt, Minnesota he grew up in Detroit, Michigan before moving to New York City as a teenager. After working for a while at an advertising ...
,
Stevan Dohanos
Stevan Dohanos (May 18, 1907 – July 4, 1994) was an American artist and illustrator of the social realism school, best known for his ''Saturday Evening Post'' covers, and responsible for several of the ''Don't Talk'' set of World War II propagan ...
,
Robert Fawcett
Robert Fawcett (1903–1967) was an English artist. He was trained as a fine artist but achieved fame as an illustrator of books and magazines.
Born in England, he grew up in Canada and later in New York. His father, an amateur artist, encoura ...
,
Peter Helck
Peter Helck (17 June 1893 - 22 April 1988) was an American illustrator who specialized in depicting racecars. He estimated that he had produced more than 600 sketches, drawings and paintings during his career.
Biography
He was born on 17 June ...
,
Fred Ludekens
Fred Ludekens (1900–1982) was an American artist and illustrator. He was born in Hueneme, California, on May 13, 1900, and grew up in California. He worked on fishing boats for a while, and then moved to San Francisco at the age of 20. Although ...
,
Al Parker
Al Parker (born Andrew Robert Okun; June 25, 1952 – August 17, 1992) was a gay American porn star, producer, and director. He died from complications of AIDS at the age of 40.
Early career
Parker was born in Natick, Massachusetts. After arriv ...
,
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 ...
,
Ben Stahl,
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 ...
,
Jon Whitcomb
Jon Whitcomb (1906–1988) was an American illustrator. He was well known for his pictures of glamorous young women. He was born in Weatherford, Oklahoma, Weatherford, Oklahoma and grew up in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. He attended ...
, and
Dong Kingman
Dong Kingman (, 31 March 1911 – 12 May 2000) was a Chinese American artist and one of America's leading watercolor masters. As a painter on the forefront of the California Style School of painting, he was known for his urban and landscape ...
.
By 1960, annual revenue of $7 million was eight times the sales of 1950. In the 1960s, the growth continued with the addition of Famous Photographers and an especially popular course, Famous Writers. European sales grew rapidly. By 1967, one officer said "we will soon have an empire on which the sun never sets." But acquisitions unrelated to art swelled the company's indebtedness, and a savage article by Jessica Mitford ripped Famous Writers for deceptive advertising and overblown promises. In 1972 the company filed for bankruptcy.
The Famous Artists School was acquired by Cortina Learning International of
Wilton, Connecticut
Wilton is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 18,503. In 2017, it was the sixth-wealthiest town per capita in Connecticut, the wealthiest U.S. state per capita.
Officially recog ...
, in 1981.
In 2014 the archives were donated to the
Norman Rockwell Museum
The Norman Rockwell Museum is an art museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, dedicated to the art of Norman Rockwell. It is home to the world's largest collection of original Rockwell art. The museum also hosts traveling exhibitions pertaining to A ...
.
According to a message displayed on the school's website, the school closed as of December 31, 2016. Textbooks are still offered for sale.
Original courses
The original course offered in 1948 was Illustration & Design, with Painting and Cartooning added in the 1950s. The Painting and Illustration & Design courses, which are still offered, consisted of 24 lessons, with a new lesson mailed to the student upon completion of the previous lesson. When a student completed and returned the assignment, it was critiqued by a professional artist who sent suggestions to the student.
The original 1948 price for the three-year course was $200, payable at once or in monthly installments, and veterans could use the
GI Bill
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...
.
By the 1950s the price was $300, plus an estimated $11.55 for basic
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
supplies.
[ Extract archived online; search "Famous" for cited pp. 72-73: ]
See also
*
Art Instruction, Inc.
*
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 ...
*
Famous Writers School
The Famous Writers School was an educational institution that ran a correspondence course for writers in the 1960s and 1970s. Founded in 1961 by Bennett Cerf, Gordon Carroll, and Albert Dorne, it became the subject of a scandal after a 1970 exposà ...
References
External links
*
Old URL*
*. Sample pages and discussion of volume 24 of the 1960 (second) edition of the Famous Artists Course, ''Television art'', written by former
Disney Studios
The Walt Disney Studios is an American film and entertainment studio, and is the Studios Content segment of the Walt Disney Company. Based mainly at the namesake studio lot in Burbank, California, the studio is best known for its multifaceted ...
animator and first (1938) television commercial producer,
Chad Grothkopf
Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic t ...
.
*
{{Authority control
Art schools in Connecticut
Distance education institutions based in the United States
Education companies established in 1948
Educational institutions established in 1948
1948 establishments in Connecticut
Wilton, Connecticut