Gary Faigin, co-Founder and Artistic Director of Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, trained at the Art Students League of New York and at the Ecole nationale superieure des beaux-arts in Paris.

While living in New York (1976-1991), Faigin taught figure drawing upon the retirement of his teacher, Robert Beverly Hale, at the Art Students League, a program he presented continuously over the next decade. Concurrently, he taught Perspective and Portrait Drawing at the newly founded New York Academy of Art, the National Academy School of Design, the School of Visual Art and Parsons School of Design. He opened his own studio in Hell's Kitchen and began personal work focused on self-portraits and still lifes.

In the summer of 1984, Faigin began a ten-year summer residence in Santa Fe, NM, a locale that afforded him exposure to the burgeoning realist painting scene of the Southwest. His works included pastel landscapes and printmaking with shows at the Frank Croft and Realist Art galleries.

Faigin has exhibited widely with solo exhibitions in Seattle and Santa Fe, including a retrospective of his work at Seattle's Frye Art Museum and the Coos Museum of Art in Oregon. A master of drawing and painting, his images typically explore his two favorite themes: altering one's perception of the commonplace and developing mood through intense contrasts of light and dark.

As a promoter and observer of historic and contemporary art in the Northwest, Faigin serves on the Board of Director of the newly-opened Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds and reviews regional museum and gallery exhibits as the Seattle Times guest art critic. He is represented by the Harris/Harvey Gallery in Seattle.
 

Website: faiginart.com
Instagram: @garyfaigin

Artwork by Gary Faigin

Gage Academy of Art acknowledges the Coast Salish Peoples as the original inhabitants of this area and connecting waterways. We understand the land that Gage occupies is unceded territory and that today many Indigenous peoples live here and without their stewardship, we would not have access to this space. We honor the Coast Salish Peoples’ sovereignty, rights to self-determination, culture and ways of life. Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have called this territory their sacred land. We commit to learning, educating others and repairing the legacy of historically harmful relationships between non-Native and Native peoples in King County. In doing so, we will be honest, and recognize the experiences of Native peoples to include genocide, forced relocation, forced assimilation, and land theft. We also acknowledge Native peoples are survivors, present in today’s world, thriving. We encourage everyone here today to ask themselves: what can I do to support Indigenous communities?

In an effort to be transparent, Gage is contemplating this call to action and re-working how to best support Indigenous communities.

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