| ABOUT | FACULTY |
STUDIO ESCALIER was founded in 2001, by the artists Timothy Stotz, Anthony Ryder and Nicole Michelle Tully, in Argenton-Chateau, France.
In 2007, Stotz and Tully also began offering drawing programs in their own studio in Paris, while Ryder founded his own studio school in Santa Fe, NM (USA).
In addition to our original Intensive Courses in Argenton-Chateau and our Paris drawing programs, Studio Escalier also offers shorter Special Programs, and occasionally invites very select visiting faculty to offer short residencies and other courses.
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| Timothy STOTZ | – Director and Head of Faculty Tutor in Painting and Drawing |
is the founder, head of faculty, and director of Studio Escalier. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, at the Seattle Academy of Fine Arts, and privately. His work is included in public and private collections across the United States & Europe.
He has been the recipient of many distinguished grants, fellowships and exhibition prizes for his painting. They include an extended Fulbright-Hays Grant for Painting to Madrid, Spain, where he was sponsored by the painter Antonio Lopez Garcia to study the works of Velazquez and Goya; a Vermont Studio Center fellowship, where he worked with the painter Gregory Gillespie; two grants for classical painting from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Montreal, Canada; and a Stacey Foundation Award for Painting (1999).
Mr Stotz’s short 2017 film La Technique du Pastel – made at the invitation of and by the Musee du Louvre – is in the permanent collection of the museum, and an extract is on display in the graphic arts gallery of the Sully wing rotunda.
Mr Stotz (b. 1969, USA) received his MFA degree in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he studied under painter Andrew Forge, N.A. and artist Nigel Rolfe. He went to graduate school at the New York Academy of Art (1995-97) and studied privately under the painter Ted Seth Jacobs in France (1993-2001).
Timothy Stotz holds a BA degree cum laude in Fine Arts from Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, where he was encouraged by Duane Keiser to study painting under Ray Berry.
Additionally, Mr Stotz was one of eight original members of the Jacob Collins Studio (1995-97) and was one of eleven founding members of the Water Street Atelier (1997), both in Brooklyn, NY.
| Nicole Michelle TULLY | – Founding Faculty Tutor in Painting and Drawing |
is full-time faculty and co-founder of Studio Escalier.
Ms. Tully has shown her work in galleries in the United States and Europe for over 30 years, including Iliad Antik (NYC), the Sherry French Gallery (NYC), Klaudia Marr Fine Art (Santa Fe, NM) and the John Pence Gallery (San Francisco). Her work has entered several distinguished private collections in the US and Europe, including the collections of Margot Gordon, Charles B. Wessler, and HRH the Prince of Wales.
In 2012, Ms. Tully’s work was selected by ACOPAL (the America China Oil Painters Art League) to be included in the first major exhibition of contemporary American realist painting in China. The ACOPAL exhibition debuted at the National Arts Club in New York City in 2012, and traveled to several major musuems in China through 2013.
She received her MFA degree in Painting from the Graduate School of Figurative Art – New York Academy of Art. She went to art school in New York City at the Art Students League and National Academy of Design, and in France at the Ecole Albert Defois under Ted Seth Jacobs (1996-2001). She holds a BA degree magna cum laude in Art History from New York University.
Nicole Michelle Tully (b. 1972, Germany) was one of eight original members of the Jacob Collins Studio (1994-97) and was one of eleven founding members of the Water Street Atelier (1997-98), both in Brooklyn, NY.
Ms Tully has been the recipient of grants, fellowships and exhibition prizes from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, the New York Academy of Art, the Prince of Wales Fellowship, the National Academy of Design, the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Spain, the Leslie T. and Frances U. Posey Foundation and the Stacey Foundation of Oklahoma City.
| M. Tobias HALL | – Visiting Faculty Tutor in Painting and Drawing |
M. Tobias Hall (b. 1981) lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
From 2017-2019, Mr Hall co-taught the museum copy program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City for the MFA Painting program of the New York Academy of Art, alongside NYAA founding faculty and senior critic Edward Schmidt.
He has taught figure drawing and painting as a visiting instructor and assistant instructor at Studio Escalier (2011 – present), at the Ryder Studio School (Santa Fe, NM), online for the Teaching Studios of Art (NYC), as well as privately.
He was the 2009 recipient of the John F. and Anna Lee Stacey Foundation Award for Painting. He has been awarded two Waterway Fellowships by Studio Escalier (2007, 2009) for artistic excellence.
M. Tobias Hall holds an MFA in Painting from the New York Academy of Art, and received his BA magna cum laude in Fine Arts (Animation) from Arizona State University.
He also studied drawing and painting at the Ryder Studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in various Studio Escalier Intensive courses and programs in Argenton-Chateau and Paris — including daily drawing at the Musee du Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay, and painting master copies in oil independently at the Louvre.
| Krista SCHOENING | – Visiting Faculty Tutor in Painting and Drawing |
Krista M. Schoening (b. 1980) is a painter, draftsman and printmaker. She specializes in still life, with a focus on botanical painting.
Ms Schoening is currently Windgate Artist-in-Residence at the University of Arkansas (Little Rock).
She has exhibited in both commercial and public galleries, including the Susquehanna Art Museum in Harrisburg, PA; the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, WA; the Grand Rapids Art Museum; and, internationally, at the 2011 Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, in London.
In 2015, her monumental flower painting Karma Dahlia II was voted into the top 25 2-D works at ArtPrize, one of the most highly attended art exhibitions in the world. Her work has been mentioned in the Detroit Free Press, The Seattle Times, the Huffington Post, and Hyperallergic, and was featured in the Art of Vanitas by Rodney O’dell Davis. Her paintings and drawings are in private collections in the United States and Europe.
Ms Schoening received her MFA in Painting and Drawing and her MA in Art History at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Her art history master’s thesis was on the work of Jacopo Ligozzi (c. 1550-1627), who worked as an artist for the Medici and is known for his extraordinary botanical studies.
She has taught painting, drawing, and color theory at the University of Washington, where she was awarded the Parnassus Award for Teaching with Excellence and a Top Scholar Fellowship.
Krista Schoening received her BA magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame (2002) in anthropology and Spanish. She pursued post-graduate studies in anthropology at Cornell University, before taking up painting as a career.
| David BAIRD | — Visiting Faculty Tutor in Painting and Drawing |
David Baird (b. 1986, USA) is an oil painter and draftsman focused primarily on contemporary figurative painting. He has taught classes in the US, Australia, and Europe, and has been visiting faculty at Studio Escalier since 2016.
Mr Baird has exhibited his work in New York, London, and elsewhere including: Memento Vivere (2021), the inaugural exhibition celebrating the reopening of the historic Lyme Academy in Lyme, CT; the 2022 New York Figurative Show at the Salmagundi Club (NYC), where he took first prize, and was invited to exhibit in the first ever Hartley Invitational at the same institution.
His latest work is featured alongside some of the most prominent figurative artists working today in Beyond Description, a dual-site exhibition taking place simultaneously at Figure | Ground Gallery (Seattle, WA) and Sugarlift (NYC).
David Baird has traveled and studied widely, attending the Ryder Studio School (Santa Fe, NM), the Janus Collaborative School of Art (NYC), Studio Escalier (Paris), and the Jerusalem Studio School, where he was awarded the Avigdor Arikha Masterclass Scholarship in 2019 to continue his studies in Italy.
The artist is represented by Tregony Gallery in London, and currently lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama.
| Ryan WURMSER | — Visiting Faculty Tutor in Painting and Drawing |
Ryan Wurmser (b. 1973) is a full-time studio-artist, writer, and teacher. He has taught at the
California Art Institute, the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, BACAA (San Francisco), as
well as privately at his own atelier, Studio 909 (Thousand Oaks, CA).
Wurmser has also worked as a conceptual and visual development artist. A brief list of clients
includes Landmark Entertainment Group, Disney Imagineering, Spectra Entertainment,
Renaissance Entertainment, Universal Studios and Paramount Studios.
His work has been exhibited in numerous venues including the following: Forbes Gallery/NY,
Colorado History Museum, Denver Museum of Art, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at
Pepperdine University, Pasadena Museum of Art, Bennington Center for the Arts, USC Fisher
Museum of Art, and the Carnegie Museum.
In 2006, he was honored with the Gold Medal for Best Painting at the California Art Club’s 95 th
Annual Gold Medal Exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of Art and also received the Grand Prize
at the “Artists for the New Century” Exhibit (Bennington, Vermont). In 2015, he was awarded
the Portrait Commission of Lord Martin Cecil, 7th Marquess of Exeter, for the Burghley House in
England.
Wurmser co-authored ART-SCI: The Consilience of Art & Science in the 21st Century with Dr. Thomas H. Kepner. He has written on many subjects in the visual arts including aesthetics, light and color, concept and composition, and plein-air painting.
Ryan Wurmser attended Art Center College of Design, and studied extensively at private schools
including the California Art Institute, Associates in Art, Steve Huston Studio, LAAFA, Andreeva
Academy, Studio Escalier, Ecole Albert Defois (with Ted Seth Jacobs), and BLFA.
In 2019, he graduated with a Masters Certificate in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica.
| Tony RYDER | — Founding Faculty Tutor in Painting and Drawing |
is represented by Andreeva Fine Art in Santa Fe, NM, and Jenkins-Johnson Gallery in San Francisico. He has exhibited his work widely in the United States, and is represented in many private collections in the United States and Europe.
Mr Ryder co-taught the 2003 Summer Intensive and 2004 Summer Intensive, and taught portrait painting at Studio Escalier from 2005 to 2007.
Mr Ryder is the author of one of the most respected and best-selling treatises on contemporary classical drawing, The Artist’s Complete Guide to Figure Drawing, and is widely regarded as one of the most gifted and influential draftsmen of our times. He has received exhibition prizes and fellowships from the Salmagundi Club and Art Students League in NYC, and from the La Napoule Foundation (France).
Mr Ryder (b. 1957, USA) is the founder of the Ryder Studio School in Santa Fe, NM, and the co-founder of Studio Escalier in France. Since 1988, he has taught at the New York Academy of Art, the Art Students League in NYC, the Seattle Academy of Fine Arts, and across the United States in a variety of private schools and organizations.
He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, and went to art school at the Rhode Island School of Design. He studied at the Art Students League (NYC) with Ted Seth Jacobs for six years (1984-1990).
| Ted Seth JACOBS | — Critic Emeritus in Drawing and Painting |
Ted Seth Jacobs (1927 – 2019) was a renowned draftsman, painter, and art teacher, with more than 70 years of professional artistic practice. He authored two authoritative books on the arts, Light for the Artist (1986) and Drawing with an Open Mind (1985). His magnum opus, A Dictionary of Human Form, was published in 2010.
Ted Jacobs served briefly as a senior critic in our 2006-07 Summer Intensive programs. Thereafter he referred all his new student inquiries to Studio Escalier and focused upon his senior private students instead.
Mr Jacobs taught at the Art Students League (as early as 1946), the New York Academy of Art (as founding faculty) and the Fashion Institute of Technology. He was the founder of the Ecole Albert Defois (1987-2010), a private art school near Vihiers, France (Maine et Loire), and lectured at Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia (2004), as well as the BACAA in San Francisco (2008, 2009 and later).
During his career, Ted Jacobs had more than sixty one-man exhibitions, in New York City, Boston, Washington DC, Biarritz and elsewhere. He received countless notable commissions in all genres: portrait, mural, landscape, and still-life, and received numerous awards and exhibition prizes for his work, including the John F and Anna Lee Stacey Foundation Award for Painting (1952).
He was also esteemed for his teaching of and influence on three generations of artists, draftsmen, and art teachers in NYC, including: Andrew Reiss, Jerry Weiss, Leo Neufeld, Anthony Ryder, Will Cotton, Jacob Collins, Michael Grimaldi, and the founding faculty of Studio Escalier, among many others.
Ted Jacobs’ richly decorated studio-residence in Les Cerqueux sous Passavant, France houses much of his work from 1985 onwards.
| Rita NATAROVA | – 2007 Visiting Faculty Tutor in Painting and Drawing |
Rita Natarova was born in 1980 in Moscow, Russia, and immigrated to the United States of America in 1992.
She has been the recipient of many prestigious awards, fellowships and exhibition prizes for her painting, including an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant for Painting (2005); the Charles Addams Memorial Prize for Excellence from the University of Pennsylvania (2005); a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship (2002); and a Fulbright-Hays Grant for Painting to Italy (2002), to study the works of Piero de la Francesca and Masaccio.
Ms Natarova has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Brooklyn College, and the Gage Academy of Fine Arts in Seattle. She has lectured at the International School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture (Montecastello di Vibio, Italy), the Studio Art Centers International (Florence) and the Jerusalem Studio School in Israel.
She received her BFA in Painting from Maryland Institute College of Art, in Baltimore, MD. She studied painting at the Jerusalem Studio School under Israel Hershberg, and at Brooklyn College under Lennart Anderson. She holds her MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA.
The artist lives and works in London and New York City.
