Michael Bell partners with Eric Fischl's America Now and Here's Studio For Learning Project

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 17, 2012

Celebrity artist to the stars Michael Bell, best known for his narrative gangster series paintings and an infamous portrait clientele that includes numerous actors from “The Sopranos” has partnered up with Eric Fischl, one of America’s most important figurative painters to create engaging art lessons for Fischl’s nationwide “America: Now and Here” project.

Drawing inspiration from America: Now and Here, Michael Bell began by asking high school students to contemplate and illustrate a single human right they felt strongly about. Bell’s project, titled 30 Human Rights, successfully sparked community engagement as well as meaningful conversations about America’s people, places and ideas.

View Michael Bell’s first two exciting projects here:
30 Human Rights Project: http://americanowandhere.org/studio_for_learning/30-human-rights-3/

30 Human Rights Video: http://youtu.be/I22uHkAu-Us

31 Nights Project: http://americanowandhere.org/studio_for_learning/31-nights/

31 Nights Video: http://youtu.be/LWGekjhMr6U

Additional photographs of the students’ work from the 30 Human Rights project, along with Bell’s own description of how you can recreate the activity in your own household, community, or classroom, can be found in the “Americans Participate and Studio for Learning” section of the “America: Now and Here” website.  We invite you to browse existing projects or even submit your own activity for visitors—children and adults alike—to print out and participate in!

“The conversation we’re hoping to start is not about art but through art,” said Dorothy Dunn, a former official at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, who serves as the program’s director. In each city and region the show visits, she said, it will collaborate with local artists and institutions, and the hope is that it will be able to raise enough money to continue beyond its initial two-year run, with new groups of artists.

Mr. Fischl and Dorothy Dunn will be presenting this exciting news to thousands of artists and art educators at the 2012 NAEA Convention in New York City Friday, March 2^nd at the Hilton Nassau Suite A 2nd Floor 3:00 - 3:50 PM. 

In addition, Mr. Bell will be delivering two national presentations there Saturday, March 3^rd at 2:00 - 2:50 PM on “31 Nights” at the Hilton Nassau Suite B 2nd Floor and on “Mastering the AP Drawing and 2-D Photography Portfolio” from 6:00 - 6:50 PM at the Hilton Mercury Rotunda 3rd Floor, New York City.

There's a Facebook Event Set up to RSVP these lectures at http://facebook.com/mbellartlive