Atelier Studio Program of Fine Arts

The Atelier Studio Program of Fine Arts is a studio school of drawing and painting established in 1969 as Atelier Lack by Minnesota artist Richard F. Lack. It was incorporated as a non-profit corporation in 1971. Richard Lack had studied with Boston artist, R. H. Ives Gammell, in the 1950s. In 1967 Lack had written "On the Training of Painters," an examination of the training of painters throughout the history of Western art, and his judgment about the superiority of the atelier, or studio system. The first years of the school were helped by three grants from The Elizabeth T. Greenshields Memorial Foundation in Montreal, Canada, “to help initiate an atelier for the purpose of training young students in the traditional craft of painting...”