Posts for October, 2025

The Figure Society was founded on January 1, 2025, by ARC Living Master Shane Wolf. Given that no artistic organization exists that focuses solely on this long-standing artform, The Figure Society firmly refocuses the paramount importance of the Nude in Art and in culture. Via its annual symposium, The Figure Society will invite 3 models, 3 sculptors, and 3 painters to collaborate over 3 days, all in full view and access to a very limited public.

The inaugural symposium will be held in Saint Louis, Missouri, from March 26 - 28, 2026, and will bring together these word-class artists: Robert Liberace (drawing and painting), Oliver Sin (drawing and painting), Shane Wolf (drawing and painting), Alicia N Ponzio (sculpture), Kevin Chambers (sculpture), and Brian Booth Craig (sculpture).

Tickets are on sale now via the website. 

In the year 2050 we will ask ourselves, "What were humanity's significant achievements of the first half of the 21st century?" The Figure Society will be one of those answers.

Learn how to create reference images for your artwork in a creative and fun atmosphere! This Halloween, get ready to become your own director. We invite you to dress up to participate in original scenes and create compositions in collaboration with the ACADEM students and team. Feel free to chat with other students to brainstorm performance themes and bring costumes and accessories accordingly. After working on composition and lighting, each scene will be photographed. These images can serve as references for your own artwork. It's free and open to all ACADEM friends and students!

Free event!

November 1st 2025 - 3pm to 8pm  at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Montréal (ACADEM), 6524 Rue St-Hubert, Montreal, H2S 2M3, CAN.

Learn more: https://academ.ca/workshops-et-evenements/ or watch the video on Instagram.

For more events, visit the ARC Calendar.

For this exhibition, five teenagers from public high schools in the Boston area collaborated with the MFA’s Center for Netherlandish Art (CNA) to explore death and decay. The works on view convey death in various ways—from the choice of subjects to how artists represent them. Even the material conditions of certain objects comment on the theme: some seemingly defy age through careful conservation, while others show the wear and tear of time. Although primarily featuring work from the MFA’s collection of Dutch and Flemish art, the exhibition also includes paintings, prints, and drawings from France, Germany, the United States, and elsewhere.

Running until November 30, 2025, the exhibition takes Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 465 Huntington Ave, Boston MA 02115.

For more information, click here. 

Visit the ARC Calendar for more events and exhibitions.

During the 19th century, advancements in industry, science, and technology changed how people thought about and dealt with death. In response, some European artists reimagined a motif known as the dance of death, which historically featured skeletons gleefully clinging to people from all walks of life. This exhibition highlights two portfolios from the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection by Albert Besnard (French, 1849–1936) and Max Klinger (German, 1857–1920). Both artists represented death disrupting everyday moments, emphasizing how sudden and unpredictable it could be. The 20 prints convey public anxiety related to previously unknown or more industrial causes of death. By looking to and updating traditions, Besnard and Klinger found a way to cope with the complex world around them.

The exhibition runs until November 30, 2025 at the Milwaukee Art Museum, 700 N. Art Museum Dr., Milwaukee, WI, 53202.

To learn more, click here.  

For more events, visit the ARC Calendar.

January 5 – July 24, 2026​

​This course is perfect for aspiring artists who are time-constrained or on a budget but still wish to receive high-quality training in classical painting and constructive drawing techniques. Whether you're a beginner or looking to refine your skills, the FCAA hybrid course offers a balanced and comprehensive learning experience. 

Course Structure - Online Segment (Self-Paced) 4 months: January through April 2026.

Begin your artistic journey from the comfort of your home, mastering the basic fundamentals of classical painting and constructive drawing at your own pace. FCAA’s comprehensive online curriculum covers essential techniques and foundational skills necessary to prepare you for advanced studies. Throughout the online segment, their experienced instructors provide weekly feedback and conduct monthly video calls to support and guide you.

In-Person Segment 3 months (Intensive) -  May through July 2026.

After completing the online portion, join the academy in Florence for three months of intensive, hands-on in-studio training. This segment focuses on more complex aspects of classical painting, including portrait drawing and painting, composition, anatomy, copying old masters and plein-air.

Upon successful completion of the Foundation Year Hybrid Program the students receive the Certificate in Visual Arts and are eligible for admission to the second year of the Three-Year Program (Diploma in Visual Arts).

Click to view the video introduction.

Key benefits of the hybrid program are flexibility, cost effectiveness, expert instruction, no student visa require (for most countries), and expert instruction.

You can inquire more information about the syllabus of the program and request a free sample of the video of the online segment by contacting the Admissions Office at admissions@artac.org.

Symbolism is among the most complex art movements to define. Although it followed on the heels of Impressionism, whose imagery was accessible and bright, Symbolism’s dark and mysterious vocabulary is far less known.

This exhibition features works on paper by iconic Symbolist artists such as Norwegian Edvard Munch, as well as lesser-known figures like the Austrian Emilie Mediz-Pelikan, the Belgian Léon Spilliaert, Jean Delville, and the French Gustav Adolf Mossa. Drawn from the Art Institute of Chicago’s rich and historic collection of drawings and prints, including the largest collection in America of the French Odilon Redon and Paul Gauguin, this display features over 85 works that capture the beauty and strangeness of a mysterious generation of artists.

The exhibition takes place at the Art Institute of Chicago, 11 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60603 from October 4, 2025 – January 5, 2026.

To learn more, please click here. 

For more events, please visit the ARC Calendar.

Considered the father of the French School, revered for breathing new life into painting, David produced imagery that to this day inhabits the collective imagination. From The Death of Marat to Napoleon Crossing the Alps and The Coronation of Napoleon, his paintings are the filter through which we picture the great moments of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, while his portraits bring to life the society of this period.

To mark the bicentennial of his death in exile in Brussels in 1825, the Musée du Louvre is offering a new perspective on a figure and body of work of extraordinary richness and diversity. The exhibition spans the long career of an artist who witnessed six different political regimes and actively participated in the French Revolution. It gathers 100 works on special loan, including the imposing, incomplete Tennis Court Oath, and the original version of his masterpiece, the celebrated Death of Marat.

The exhibition runs from October 15, 2025 – January 26, 2026 at the Musee de Louvre, 99 rue di Rivoli, Paris, France, 75001.

For more information, please click here. 

For events and exhbitions please visit the ARC Calendar.  

This week marks the release of John Hafen: Utah’s Poet Painter, a comprehensive biography of the celebrated Utah artist written by father-daughter art historians, Vern G. Swanson and Angela Swanson Jones. Lavishly illustrated with over two hundred of the artist’s best works, readers will be enthralled by the beauty and sensitivity of the lyrical landscapes that earned Hafen the title of “Utah’s Poet Painter.”

Largely written in his own words from hundreds of his letters, the book gives insight into a short life characterized by struggle and privation. And yet it was a beautiful tale made more poignant by his unwavering devotion to art, nature, and nature’s God. Complementing the book publication is the major retrospective exhibition, Enduring Beauty: John Hafen and the Power of Art at the Springville Museum of Art (on view through July 25, 2026).

Published by Gibbs Smith (gibbs-smith.com), John Hafen: Utah’s Poet Painter can be found on Amazon and at other major book retailers.

The Museo MEAM presents one of the most anticipated events in the international art calendar: Figurativas 2025, the exhibition resulting from the international competition of figurative painting and sculpture organized by the Fundació Privada de les Arts i els Artistes.

With this exhibition, the Museo MEAM reaffirms its commitment to defending an artistic language that, far from fading away, continues to renew itself and connect with audiences in a direct and deeply moving way.

The exhibition runs from October 3, 2025 - January 11, 2026 at the Museo MEAM, C/ Barra de Ferro, 5. Barcelona, Spain.

For more information, please click here.  

Visit the ARC Calendar for more events and exhibitions.

The Golden State features artwork from 27 juried artists of the California Art Club. The exhibition offers viewers a journey through California’s varied environs and cultural monuments, highlighting its natural beauty and dynamic energy through the lens of contemporary-traditional art.

This display is part of CAC’s “Celebrating California’s 175th” exhibition series to mark this milestone anniversary for the 31st state in the union.

The exhibition takes place at California Art Club Gallery at The Old Mill, 1120 Old Mill Road, San Marino CA 91108 from September 18, 2025 - January 18, 2026.

To learn more, please click here.  

For more events, please visit the ARC Calendar.

This fall, Gallery 1261 revisits the extraordinary terrain of high-definition realism with Tight 2, a follow-up to the landmark exhibition curated by Anthony Waichulis. The artists selected for this special showcase continue to awe and inspire with their endeavors, achieving levels of resolution and depth that elicit experiences of wonder and fascination for any viewer. As before, the show will feature demonstrable virtuosity, compelling content, and astonishing resolution in many forms. If you appreciate the discipline and dazzle of razor-sharp representation, this is not a show to miss.

Participating artists include ARC Living Masters Anthony Waichulis, Duffy Sheridan, Ardith Starostka, ARC Living Artist Carlos Bruscianelli, and Assistant Director of ARC Approved Atelier, ARA Boston, Julie Beck.

The exhibition runs from October 1 – November 1, 2025 at Gallery 1261, 1261 Delaware St. Suite 1, Denver, CO 80204.

To learn more, visit here. 

For more events and exhibitions, visit the ARC calendar. 

The Kimbell welcomes Caravaggio’s monumental canvas Judith Beheading Holofernes, on loan from the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome.

Soon after moving to Rome around 1595, Caravaggio (1571–1610) won the attention of the city’s elite and his fellow artists. Painted directly from live models with strong contrasts of light, his dramatic and innovative pictures—like the Kimbell’s iconic Cardsharps (c. 1596–97)—were widely imitated. Caravaggio’s earliest known historical painting, Judith Beheading Holofernes narrates a passage from the Book of Judith in the Old Testament Apocrypha. 

This painting, which ranks among the artist’s most groundbreaking masterpieces for its bold realism and the theatrical staging of its biblical subject, will be on view in the Kimbell Museum, the Kahn Building, 3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, TX 76107 from September 14, 2025 through January 11, 2026.

To learn more, click here.  

Visit the ARC Calendar for more events and exhibitions.