After World War II, American education boomed. Armed with GI Bill funding, veterans wanted to quickly convert new, practical skills into careers. Self-improvement courses completed at home became increasingly popular. Through a correspondence course, participants learned how to repair radios and watches, raise rabbits, correct a stammer, and play a musical instrument. The Famous Artists School (FAS), once Westport’s largest business, captured that energy by marketing a wildly popular set of commercial art courses. Though over-expansion, scandal, and changing technologies later diminished its luster, its story is one built on the American Dream.
In 1948, charismatic illustrator Albert Dorne had an idea. He approached America’s most famous working illustrator, Norman Rockwell (known for his idealized depictions of American life on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post), about creating a correspondence school for commercial art, full of tips, methods, and case studies to appeal to those who dreamed of becoming an artist.
Dorne and Rockwell made a formidable team. Rockwell’s fame and modest demeanor balanced Dorne’s man-about-town persona—with his perennial cigar and bushy eyebrows inviting caricature. With the addition of another ten founding artists, the school opened in October 1948 in the old Sasco mill by the Saugatuck River in Westport, Connecticut. Each founder devised a distinctive curriculum marketed to prospective students, but when most students only expressed interest in Rockwell’s course, the initial model quickly became untenable.
Regrouping, the founders created one set of instruction manuals, and FAS leveraged Rockwell’s fame to attract students. “Art school for everyone everywhere” read one FAS ad, which ran in the back of magazines such as TV Guide and Life. For $200, or GI benefits, the student received large binders containing 24 lessons. After completing each lesson, the student mailed the resulting art in a large, flat envelope to Westport. On-site instructors, working under the direction of guiding faculty, then critiqued the student work by drawing or painting corrections on a tissue or acetate overlay.
Charles Reid, who joined FAS in 1963 as its youngest instructor, noted that with the early lessons, students received a stock letter response according to their skill level. By lesson eight, the instructors sent personal critique letters, with marked-up art, back to the student. Reid recalls recording his letters by Dictaphone, completing three critiques a day. Students included celebrities such as Tony Curtis (who gained recognition for his easel paintings), Charlton Heston, Pat Boone, and Dinah Shore. Continue reading from Connecticut History
The Draw of a Mail-Order Art School: The Famous Artists School (New York Times)
Celebrating the History of Westport as an Artists' Colony (Patch)
Uncovering the Treasures of the Famous Artists School Archives (Norman Rockwell Museum)
Famous Artists School Draws NY Times’ Attention (06880 Blog)
Instruction by Mail: The Famous Artists School (Connecticut History)
Westport Artists Get a Place of Their Own (New York Times)
