Michael Klein

Michael Klein was nineteen when he began his serious training in classical ateliers and workshops. His first teacher was Richard Whitney, one of New Hampshire’s most prominent portrait painters and a pupil to the teaching of R.H. Ives Gammell of the Boston School Tradition. After two years of workshop classes under Whitney’s guidance, Klein continued studying in Minneapolis at the former atelier Lack which was founded by Richard Lack, a classical painter whose efforts were largely responsible for the revival of traditional painting in the United States.  Seeking to broaden his education, Klein then left his home in the Midwest to move east, where he began studies at the Art Students League of New York, most notably under the tutelage of portraitist Nelson Shanks. In 2002, Klein entered what would become his final school, the Water Street Atelier (now Grand Central Atelier), where he apprenticed under founder Jacob Collins until 2005.