Ana Finel Honigman
What is art education and what should it do? The essays that Steven Henry Madoff has assembled in Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) explore this often-controversial question and attempt to determine how to educate people to become professional artists. Madoff is the Senior Critic at Yale University’s School of Art. Art School emerges from symposia that he conducted over a five-year period. Thirty prominent artists and educators contributed essays that assess, approve, and in some cases decry the purposes and pedagogy of contemporary formal art studies. Artists’ Sessions at Studio 35 (1950) offers intimate insight into the thinking of many of the twentieth century’s pioneering American abstract artists. The slim volume documents the salon sessions at 35 East Eighth Street in Greenwich Village on April 21–23, 1950, where the goal, as defined by sculptor Richard Lippold, was simply “to learn from conversation with my confreres.” As the book reveals, the discussions that took place predicated on obvious shared respect, curiosity, and exploration.