About

Library

The Academy maintains small libraries in Florence and Sweden with books and periodicals that focus predominantly on drawing, oil painting and sculpture, ranging from ancient to modern time periods, often in the form of artist monographs and exhibition catalogues. Students use these spaces for quiet research. Wifi gives access to ARTstor, a non-profit digital library of more than one million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences to view, present, and manage for research and pedagogical purposes.

Original Artwork

We consider access to original artwork essential to the student’s educational experience at the Florence Academy. Throughout the years, we have purchased directly from students and faculty, or received as gifts, a collection of drawings, paintings and sculpture numbering over 400 works. This exceptional artwork is displayed in the Academy’s galleries and the corridors of the school, and are continually used by instructors as teaching tools and examples for students to follow. In addition, the Academy owns six 19th century figure drawings, and received in donation from Edward T. Wilson two original drawings by Jéan-Leon Gérome and Charles Bargue. It also owns a number of original 19th century lithographic prints from the Cours de Dessin by Charles Bargue.

The Florence Academy of Art sets aside funding each year to purchase artwork from students. We have also funded long-term projects with specific didactic aims, for example, the five phases of a cast drawing by former instructor, Stephen Bauman, or the seven-phase figure drawing by current instructor, Marco Franco. Each required substantial hours over a period of months. As each phase was complete, it was set aside, and the instructor started over to reach the next phase. The drawings are now framed and available for study.

Another important project funded by the Florence Academy are the life size ecorché sculpture and skeleton produced by FAA Sculpture graduate, Marusia Nita. These two exceptional works are housed in the FAA Gallery.

FAA Blog and Reserved Area

The FAA Blog is available to everyone; the “Reserved Area” to currently enrolled students only. Here we have uploaded images, lectures, and videos. The Image Archive contains 3000 images culled from past lectures or contributed over the years by students and faculty. The Lecture Archive contains the Art History lectures given at The Florence Academy of Art each Friday. The FAA Collective Archive contains videos produced by the FAA Media Team for The FAA Collective on Patreon.