See caption
Henry Sass, 1822
Wikimedia Commons

Sass’s Drawing Academy, also known as Sass’s School for Drawing and Painting,[1] was founded in London in 1818 by the English artist Henry Sass (1788–1844), with the aim of providing training for those artists seeking to enter the Royal Academy. Many distinguished British painters received their early training at the school, including Charles West Cope, Augustus Egg, W. P. Frith, W. E. Frost, J. C. Horsley, J. E. Millais, D. G. Rossetti, and Abraham Solomon.[2]

Such was Sass’s commitment to art education that the painter Sir David Wilkie said he could have “taught a stone to draw”.[3] Following Sass’s descent into insanity, the school was taken over by his former pupil F. S. Cary in 1842,[2] after which it was known as Cary’s Academy.[1]

In the words of his biographer, Robin Hamlyn:[2]

For more than two decades Sass and his academy, housed in an elegant building with a bust of Minerva over the porch, stood uniquely at the centre of art education in England, a position that was fully recognized by the art establishment.

References

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  3. p. 282

Bibliography