It is impossible to stress strongly enough the positive effect that the Art Renewal Center has had

It is impossible to stress strongly enough the positive effect that the Art Renewal Center has had on the revival of the Realist movement. Ever since its beginning many years ago, the ARC has championed the need for a rebirth in the principles embodied in representational art and in the appreciation of the beauties of 19th-century Western Academy art.

I am 71 years old and have studied Western art for over 50 years, but it was not until the ARC began to show the world the brilliance of paintings by Bouguereau, Leighton, Waterhouse, Hynais, Bonnat, Cavé, et al. that we even knew of these painters’ existence. Their works were never shown in schools and universities, and neither were their methods taught.

On this practical level, it is through the ARC that students who want to learn the principles involved in drawing and painting realistically have found out where to study them. My own school, the Angel Academy of Art, Florence, has students from all over the world, from Japan to America, and from Sweden to Australia, because of the ARC’s outreach.

The ARC International Salon Competition is also an extremely important thing. It is a major international show that presents the new Representationalism to the general public. I am still amazed that so much of the public has no idea that Representationalism is on the rise, and it is through the ARC Salon and the ARC site that we specialist academies are making ourselves known to that public.