Grand Central School of Art

History

The school was established and run by the Grand Central Art Galleries, an artists' cooperative founded by Sargent, Greacen, Clark, and others in 1922. The school was directed by Greacen, Sargent and Daniel Chester French and occupied 7000 sqft on the seventh floor of the east wing of the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Press accounts of the school's opening reception mentioned the instructors: Greacen, George Pearse Ennis, sculptor Chester Beach, muralists Ezra Winter and Dean Cornwell, the illustrator and costume designer Helen Dryden, Nicolai Fechin, 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 as an instructor, probably the school's most prominent teacher. Another instructor was Harvey Dunn, 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 Grand Central Academy of Art, despite the similarity 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.

Alumni

• Charles Addams
• James E. Allen
• Revington Arthur
• Tore Asplund
• Clare Bice
• Hans Burkhardt
• Gerald Curtis Delano
• John Philip Falter
• Arnold Friberg
• Mary Goldsmith
• Walter Tandy Murch
• Stow Wengenroth
• Arthur Sarnoff
• Norman Rockwell
• Harold Von Schmidt
• John Clymer
• Jack Coggins
• F. Luis Mora
• Alex Raymond
• Arthur Roy Mitchell
• James Gordon Irving
• Frank J. Reilly
• Frank DuMond
• Robert F. Gault AWS
• Edmund Greacen
• Pruett Carter
• Frank Panabaker
• Ken Riley
• Saul Tepper
• Norman Saunders
• Emmett Watson
• Bob Kane
• Stuart Davis
• Ethel Schwabacher
• Arshile Gorky
• Willem de Kooning
• Roselle Osk
• Molly Guion
• John Dehner

References

References

1. (November 23, 1924). "400 Enroll in 6 Weeks; Grand Central School of Art Announces List of Instructors.".
2. (December 19, 1922). "Painters and Sculptors' Gallery Association to Begin Work.".
3. (September 6, 1929). "Terminal Fire Not in Art School.".
4. (October 2, 1924). "New Art School Opens: Reception Held in Studios Over the Grand Central".
5. (September 16, 1928). "Art Activities Here, at Home, and Out of Town; In Massachusetts. In Connecticut. In Vermont. In Pennsylvania. The Carnegie International.".
6. "About ICAA - Institute of Classical Architecture & Art".
7. University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign campus) College of Fine and Applied Arts. (1950). "University of Illinois Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting". University of Illinois Press.
8. (1962). "Who's Who in America". A.N. Marquis.
9. J. Marshall Guion (IV). (1976). "Descendants of Louis Guion, Huguenot, of La Rochelle, France and New Rochelle, West Chester County, Province of New York: A Guion Family Album, 1654 to 1976". Guion.