Shaping American Art: A Celebration of the Art Students League of New York at 150

Opens May 29, 2025

Join the opening reception, May 29 at 6pm.

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This exhibition examines the Art Students League of New York’s rich and complex history and its impacts on the trajectories of American art since 1875. For the last 150 years, the League has been home to artists of every medium and movement. Not immune to the ups and downs of our lived experience, the League has withstood two World Wars, stock market crashes, the Great Depression, the Cold War, and other major upheavals of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. As these events have shaped the institution, the League, in turn, has shaped its artists and the course of American art. More than a citation in an artist’s biography or a footnote to an epoch, the League firmly holds a place in the manifold histories of American art.

Hundreds of thousands of students and instructors have crossed paths with the League in its 150 years. They have broken boundaries, developed their own voices, and found new havens in our studios and galleries. They have been exposed to the “masters” whilst pushing the limits of their individuality. In the face of World Wars and other societal tribulations, the League has been a sanctuary for international artists. Whether born in the United States or abroad, artists of diverse backgrounds are drawn to the League. It has been—and continues to be—the spark for lifelong friendships and even romances. This exhibition explores how artists have changed and been changed by their time at the League.

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While nearly 100 League artists are represented in this exhibition, thousands of more are not; yet their works remain in dialogue with one another, thanks to the shared connection that is the League. 

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This exhibition is co-curated by Esther V. Moerdler and Ksenia Nouril, PhD.

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The exhibition features artists who studied or taught at the League:

Berenice Abbott, John Ahearn, Charles H. Alston, Milton Avery, Peggy Bacon, Will Barnet, Gifford Reynolds Beal, James Carroll Beckwith, Ben Benn, Thomas Hart Benton, Theresa Bernstein, Robert Hamilton Blackburn, Arnold Blanch, Edward E. Boccia, Louise Bourgeois, George Brant Bridgman, Alexander Calder, Alexander Stirling Calder, John Fabian Carlson, Steven Cartoccio, William Merritt Chase, Francis Cunningham, Charles Courtney Curran, Dorothy Dehner, Joseph Delaney, Edwin Dickinson, Preston Dickinson, Sidney E. Dickinson, Arthur Wesley Dow, Frank Vincent DuMond, Ernest Fiene, Audrey Flack, Chaim Gross, George Grosz, Al Held, Robert Henri, Al Hirschfeld, Sergei Hollerbach, Winslow Homer, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Robert Ward Johnson, Donald Judd, Rockwell Kent, Stewart Klonis, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Aaron Kurzen, Hughie Lee-Smith, Iria Leino, Martin Lewis, Norman Lewis, Reginald Marsh, Knox Martin, Peter Max, Richard Mayhew, Hildreth Meiere, Kenneth Hayes Miller, F. Luis Mora, Ruth Morley, Seong Moy, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ivan Gregorovitch Olinsky, Anthony Palumbo, Joseph Pennell, Joyce Pensato, Fairfield Porter, Mavis Pusey, Robert Rauschenberg, Boardman Robinson, Norman Rockwell, Emilio Sanchez, Ben Shahn, John Sloan, Tony Smith, Isaac Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Eugene Edward Speicher, Nahum Tschacbasov, Allen Tucker, Charles Yardley Turner, Max Weber, Charles Wilbert White, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Lemuel Everett Wilmarth, Carmen Winant, Russel Wright, Vaclav Vytlacil.