Cooley Studios was founded February 2012 in Columbus Ohio by Michael A. Cooley, medical illustrator, classical academic artist, portratist and educator. The schools was started to offer students the opportunity to study classical academic art. This structured method of art training emerged from the practices of the 15th century Renaissance apprenticeships and continued through the late 19th century in the European ateliers. This type of training was almost lost to art education due to the emergence of Impressionism and the changing tastes of art that ushered in modern, post modern and contemporary art. If not for the early Herculean efforts of the Boston School, the Art Students League of NY and Atelier Lack, training in classical realism would have suffered greatly, possibly fallen into extinction. We certainly appreciate many genres of art but not at the expense of sound design and structure of classical academic art.
Modern and contemporary art instruction permits students to work on art expression before the student has matured structurally. Cooley feels expression is hampered greatly if student artists lacks the skills to draw and paint effectively at a high level. We believe there are many student artists and practicing professionals who desire classical training. For these reasons, we opened our school.
Cooley Studios is also a art service center. We accept portrait commissions and medical illustration assignments.
We also train prospective medical illustrations students classical drawing and painting skills to help round out their portfolios. This helps them tremendously when applying to their desired medical illustration programs. For more information of the atelier program, click here.