The Art Student’s League Drawings

The Art Student’s League is located on W 57th Street in Manhattan. It has been there forever and many historically significant artists who went on to fame and fortune passed through the place back in the day.

Today it is mostly irrelevant to the greater NY art scene - still doing what it has always done - mostly teaching hobbyists academic painting and drawing, working from life, mostly models.

Back when I was active there (90 - 97) they had two non-instructive figure drawing classes that anyone could attend every Friday night. I think it cost $8. One was in a small cramped room on the first floor, the other was in a much larger rectangular room on the second floor.

I always went to the second floor.

The model stand was in the middle of the room. Most everyone sat on drawing benches in a large circle around it.

I, on the other hand, set up in back of everyone else, on the right side of the rectangle walking in, where I had a lot of room to move around in.

Most everyone else worked from newsprint pads.

I worked on half-sheets of 90 lb hp, always using compressed charcoal and eraser.

Prior to the start of class, I’d tape a dozen or so blank sheets to the wall on the left side of where I stood.

I used a sculpture pedestal as a drawing stand.

Five-minute poses were my favorite. I liked the freshness of the quick impression.

For the longer poses, I would move around and do two or three. I did this so much that I became like a fixed lens camera. The size of the figure on the page was completely determined by how close I was to the model. It was not something that I could control.

By the end of the session, I would have an entire show on the wall.

Others would gather around, sometimes asking if I would trade drawings with them, which I always did.

I stopped going when they closed down the second floor room.

I have a hard time being in small rooms.