The Visual Language of Drawing Lessons on the Art of Seeing

James Lancel McElhinney received an MFA from the Yale School of Art and was later awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. His artwork has been shown in more than 40 solo gallery and museum exhibitions, and is in many private and public collections. In addition to teaching life drawing at the Art Students League of New York, McElhinney teaches Foundations drawing at Pratt Institute.

For more than 130 years, the Art Students League of New York--founded by and for artists in 1875--has provided an open-door policy for anyone seeking artistic training.  Early instructors included William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, Thomas Eakins, and Childe Hassam, and their students became well-known professionals whose legacy continues today. Many famous artists who have shaped the vocabulary of art worldwide have been instructors, lecturers, and students here. They include, among many others, George Bridgman, Thomas Hart Benton, Alexander Calder, Georgia O'Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Winslow Homer, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Nevelson, Romare Bearden, Roy Lichtenstein, and Mark Rothko.