Visual Arts
Every student who takes a Visual Arts course has her work publicly displayed in one of our continuous exhibition areas around school. Our students express themselves and experiment in many media, from paint to pencil, clay to cray-pas... even to pixels - used in the study of digital photography.
Five Visual Arts studios give Westover students plenty of space to work, with separate studios for ceramics, drawing and painting, advanced placement art, photography, printmaking, and introductory art courses. And classes are small and intimate.
Many of our teachers are working artists/mentors: our Photography teacher spent six months in China, taking thousands of digital images; our Painting teacher has his own on-campus studio in which to paint. The Head of our studio art program is married to a working artist who shows at Hirschl and Adler in NYC, and a father-in-law, also an acclaimed painter, shows at Spanierman Gallery in New York. Art is a way of life for our studio teachers, both in and out of the classroom.
In addition, our wonderful Schumacher Gallery in our beautiful, new performing arts center hosts exhibits of visiting professional artists throughout the year.
And our students hone their art in the summer. The Andy Arts Award provides funds for students to pursue summer programs in the visual or performing arts. As an example, we have had an advanced Drawing and Painting student selected to spend six intensive weeks at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, and one of our actors attended the Emerson Summer Stage Program for High School students.
Art is a priority at Westover. It's a recognized, integrated curriculum requirement for the beginner and advanced artist in you!
With the Met, The Guggenheim, MOMA, and the International Center of Photography in our backyard and the amazing galleries at Yale down the road, appreciating the arts is a hands-on experience. Generally, each studio art class takes a field trip to museums in New York City such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, the Frick Collection, and International Center for Photography.
