Juliette Aristides…Contemporary Classical Master

When the New Media Relations Committee took over the job of creating the Cecilia Beaux Forum blog, we discovered that there was already a blog that had been created years ago. It was chock full of these interesting articles on Women Artists of the past and present, written over the years by members of the CBF Literature Committee, and published in the Art of the Portrait Members Journal.

Instead of hiding them in the archives of the new blog, we decided to introduce them now and again so everyone can enjoy and learn. 

We present an article about a Contemporary Master, Juliette Aristides.  Aristides draws and paints exquisitely in the classical tradition and teaches at the Aristides Atelier, located in Gage Academy of Art in Seattle Washington.

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By Pat Aube Gray
The Art of the Portrait Journal
Issue No. 35, 1st Quarter 2007

The Artist by Juliette Aristides

Born in 1971 in South Africa, Juliette Aristides immigrated with her parents at age two to the Pennsylvania countryside.  She recalls spending more time in her imagination during her childhood than in reality.  “Drawing,” she says, “gave me a way of engaging.”

An  extraordinary draughtsman, Aristides is the product of many years of study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the more traditional National Academy of Design, and the studios of Myron Barnstone, Atelier (formerly Atelier Lack), Jacob Collins, and the Water Street Atelier.  The artist has embraced the methods of working through the skill and craft building disciplines of creating art under the tutelage of a single instructor.

Today this shy, though highly focused and driven, young mother of three is an accomplished and highly acclaimed artist who founded the four-year Aristides Classical Drawing Atelier at the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, Washington in 1999.  Gary Faigin, Artistic Director at Gage, states Juliette “…possesses a rare and critically important ability to inspire her students to extremely high levels of effort and productivity…” and, “sets extremely high standards for accomplishment.”

The Bowl by Juliette Aristides

Aristides has authored Classical Drawing Atelier: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Studio Practice, which was released in the fall of 2006.  In 2007 her book, Classical Painting Atelier was released and then in 2011 she published Lessons in Classical Drawing: Essential Techniques from Inside the Atelier. For the practicing artist, student, and teacher, these tomes provide a strong framework in the disciplines of the classical tradition, and an insightful history of its development, demise, and current rebirth.  They also contain the author’s persuasive, philosophical, and logical discourse supporting the belief that to achieve artistic greatness we must understand and build upon knowledge of the achievements already attained throughout art history.