SASS ART SCHOOL

1813 - ?

Sass's Academy, also known as Sass's Drawing Academy, was an art school in Charlotte Street, London that prepared students for the Royal Academy. Founded in 1813, by Henry Sass (24 April 1788–21 June 1844), an English artist who struggled to make a living as a painter, originally at 50 Great Russell Street, and in 1820 moved to 6 Charlotte Street in Bloomsbury. The most famous of the London art-schools it was the first school to teach its students in any methodical way, and it occupies a prominent place in the development of Victorian art. Sass had initially established his school because he was unable to make a living as a painter, producing works of only limited appeal but was an astute educator, his college developed a reputation for excellence and was a selective, fee-paying public school only taking a maximum of eighteen students, some of whom were boarders. Due to his failing mental health, in 1842, two years before his death at Brook House, Clapton, Hackney on 21 June 1844, Sass passed the directorship of the school to a former pupil Francis Stephen Cary (10 May 1808–6 January 1880), when the name of the school was changed to Cary’s Academy with Richard Redgrave (30 April 1804-14 December 1888) was engaged as visitor. The alumni include Sir John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Charles West Cope (1811–1890) William Powell Frith (1819–1909), William Edward Frost (1810–1877), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882), Edward Lear (1812–1888), Simeon (1840–1905) and Abraham Solomon (1824–1862). Suffolk artists who studied at Cass or Cary schools include George Clayton Eaton and John Mallows Youngman.