National Academy of Design

National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, 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.
Samuel Morse and other students set about forming a 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 in London 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."
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 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".
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 over the years. Notable among them was a building on Park Avenue and 23rd Street designed by architect P. B. Wight and built 1863–1865 in a Venetian Gothic style modeled on the Doge's Palace in Venice. Another location was at West 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. 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 at 1083 Fifth Avenue, near 89th Street; it had been the home of sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and philanthropist Archer M. Huntington, who donated the house in 1940.
The National Academy of Design shared offices and galleries with the National Arts Club located inside the historic Samuel J. Tilden House, 14-15 Gramercy Park South from 2019 until 2023.
Currently the home of the National Academy of Design is at 519 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor with offices as well as meeting, event and exhibition space.
Organization and activities
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 "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, 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 was the first full-time instructor. Silas Dustin was a curator.
Notable members
Marina Abramović
Benjamin Abramowitz
James Henry Beard
Edwin Blashfield
Lee Bontecou
Stanley Boxer
Walker O. Cain
John F. Carlson
Vija Celmins
William Merritt Chase
Frederic Edwin Church
Chuck Close
Thomas Cole
Colin Campbell Cooper
Leon Dabo
Cyrus Dallin
William Parsons Winchester Dana
Charles Harold Davis
Henry Golden Dearth
Jose de Creeft
Richard Diebenkorn
William Henry Drake
Thomas Eakins
Lydia Field Emmet
Herbert Ferber
Bruce Fowle
Helen Frankenthaler
Gilbert Franklin
Daniel Chester French
Frederick Carl Frieseke
Sonia Gechtoff
Frank Gehry
John George Brown
Paul Georges
Arthur Hill Gilbert
Aaron Goodelman
Hardie Gramatky
Horatio Greenough
Red Grooms
Armin Hansen
L. Birge Harrison
Edward Lamson Henry
Itshak Holtz
Winslow Homer
Cecil de Blaquiere Howard
George Inness
Jasper Johns
Frank Tenney Johnson
Lester Johnson
Wolf Kahn
Charles Keck
Ellsworth Kelly
Greta Kempton
Everett Raymond Kinstler
Chaim Koppelman
Leo Lentelli
Emanuel Leutze
Hayley Lever
Maya Lin
Frank Lobdell
Evelyn Beatrice Longman
Frederick William Macmonnies
Knox Martin
Jervis McEntee
Michael Mazur
Gari Melchers
Alme Meyvis
Raoul Middleman
F. Luis Mora
Henry Siddons Mowbray
John Mulvany
David Dalhoff Neal
Victor Nehlig
Eliot Noyes
Kate Orff
Tom Otterness
William Page
Philip Pearlstein
I. M. Pei
John Thomas Peele
Judy Pfaff
Renzo Piano
William Lamb Picknell
Albin Polasek
Alfred Easton Poor
John Portman
Alexander Phimister Proctor
Harvey Quaytman
Andrew Raftery
Robert Rauschenberg
Benjamin Franklin Reinhart
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
Dorothy Weir Young
Milford Zornes
William Penn Morgan
See also
American Watercolor Society (located within the National Academy of Design)
Effects of the financial crisis of 2007–2009 on museums
List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
References
External links
Virtual tour of the National Academy of Design at Google Arts & Culture
1825 establishments in New York (state)
23rd Street (Manhattan)
Academies of arts
Art museums and galleries in New York City
Art museums established in 1825
Art schools in New York City
Clubs and societies in New York City
Design museums in New York (state)
Fifth Avenue
Learned societies of the United States
Museums in Manhattan
Organizations established in 1825
Upper East Side
Venetian Gothic architecture in the United States