DICK STONE

 

 

 

Dick was born in 1925. When he began to study at the Art Students League of New York (under Raphael Soyer, among others) at the age of twelve, he was the youngest student the League had ever accepted. In fact, he had to receive special permission to attend nude sketch classes. After the war, he went on to Yale University's School of Fine Art (studying under Josef Albers, among others) from which he received a BFA. After graduation, he established a career in New York as an A-list illustrator (financial pressures having required him to pursue illustration rather than non-representational painting). After close to ten years as an illustrator, he turned to commercial photography, and from photography to filmmaking. Through it all, he continued to paint. Then, in 1994, just as he was about to finally show his work, the Emporium-Hardware-store-fire in Sag Harbor, New York destroyed every work of art he had done up to that point, his studio having been on the top floor of that building. Nevertheless, he continued to paint. And his studio is once again full.