The Sydney Art School (also known as the Julian Ashton Art School), which Ashton established in 1890 as the "Academy Julien", (perhaps a reference to the Académie Julian in Paris) has been and remains to this day one of the most influential in Australia.
Julian Ashton students have included Elioth Gruner, George Lambert, B E Minns, Thea Proctor, Adrian Feint, Sydney Long, Howard Ashton (Julian's son), Dorrit Black, J J Hilder, William Dobell, Edmund Arthur Harvey, Eric Wilson, Jean Bellette, Douglas Dundas, Arthur Freeman, William Dadswell, John Passmore, Joshua Smith, Max Dupain, John Olsen, Michael Johnston, Jim Russell, Sydney Ure Smith, Brett Whiteley, Susan Dorothea White, Nigel Thomson and Salvatore Zofrea.
After Julian Ashton died in 1942, the school was run by Henry Gibbons (1884–1972). Henry Gibbons had started at the school as a student in April 1919 and soon became the teacher of the night drawing classes. In 1924 Gibbons proposed starting a Saturday afternoon class so that he could teach some of the night drawing students to paint. The Saturday class started in February 1924 and the first nine students were Dobell, Dundas, Passmore, Badham, Lawrence, Brackenreg, Byrne, Hubble and Cox. Gibbons taught many winners of the NSW Traveling Arts Scholarship. Henry Gibbons retired in 1960.
Howard Ashton's son, J. Richard Ashton, and his wife Wenda ran the School from 1960, when, among many gifted artists, Ian Chapman and Archibald Prize winner Francis Giacco attended, until 1977 when Phillip Ashton (Richard's son) became Principal, this being the time of Haydn Wilson, political cartoonist Bill Leak and artist Paul Newton.
In 1988 the school was incorporated and Paul Delprat, Julian Ashton's great-grandson, himself an ex-student took over the running of the school, becoming the current Principal. In 1989 the school's antique casts and easels, which date back to 1890, were classified by the National Trust. The school's main campus is in The Rocks, Sydney, located opposite the Museum of Contemporary Art. Since 2004 the school has also conducted classes at Headland Park, Georges Heights, Mosman.
The School currently offers: The Sir William Dobell, Brett Whiteley, John Olsen, Thea Proctor, Portrait Artists Australia, Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts and The Art Express scholarships to encourage fine drawing and painting. Samuel Wade, a Brett Whiteley Scholarship winner at the school, went on to win the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
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