Charles Cecil

Cecil also received an award from the National Portrait Society of America for “Excellence in Art Education” for his school of fine art that offers a thorough training in the traditional techniques of naturalistic drawing and painting from life. The training methods of Cecil, stemming from Renaissance Italy in which a master painter opens his studio to a select group of dedicated students, can be traced back to the Old Master ateliers of Titian, Van Dyck and Velázquez, through to the studios of Reynolds, Lawrence, and John Singer Sargent. The work of his current and former students trained in this method have consistently been recognized in such international competitions as the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the Royal Society of Portrait Painter’s Annual Exhibitions.