‘Portraits 2016’ Exhibition at the Cecil Studios

Featuring 30 works painted from life, Portraits 2016 will open to the public at Charles H. Cecil Studios (Piazzale Donatello, 31) on Saturday, May 28 and Sunday, May 29 between 1 and 7 pm.

Portraits 2016 comprises portraits in oils by advanced students who are taught according to the atelier tradition at a historic studio designed in the 1870s for artists.

The Charles H. Cecil Studios has an international reputation for portraiture painted using the sight-size method where the artist steps back from the subject, which is depicted to scale in a proportion true to life. The canvas and the model are placed side by side in natural light.

Sight-size as a portrait technique was used extensively by Florence-born John Singer Sargent and his contemporaries, while its origins lie in the practice of Titian, Van Dyck and Velázquez.

The work of students from the Cecil Studios trained in the method has consistently been recognized in international competitions. 
Four former students are now showing in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2016 at the Mall Galleries, London.

One of the contributing artists, Daisy Sims-Hilditch, currently completing her training at the Cecil Studios, will be represented at the prestigious BP Portrait Award 2016 at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She is one of the 53 painters chosen from 2,557 submissions.

The philosophy underlying the Florence exhibition is that painting a portrait is a slow process that attains a depth of characterization by integrating many composite moments, not just one instant captured on film.

This is in contrast to paintings executed in many art academies according to hyperrealism, which resemble the very photos that are their basis. Portraits 2016, on the other hand, is the work of students who learn to observe from a distance and convey the visual effect using an approach that gives atmosphere to a painting as well as form.

The recipient of two major awards at the National Academy of Design in New York—the Hallgarten Prize for oil painting and the Altman Prize for landscape—Charles H. Cecil, who carries on this legacy, studied with R.H. Ives Gammell in Boston and Richard F. Lack in Minneapolis. He personally instructed the students of Portraits 2016 in the visual, technical and aesthetic aspects of sight-size portraiture.

In 2008, Charles H. Cecil Studios was awarded the Excellence in Art Education Award by the Portrait Society of America.

For further information contact 055 285 102, or email info@charlescecilstudios.com.  (rosanna cirigliano)