<P> While until very recently, the school did not--by intention--offer formal degrees, today students are able to obtain a Master of Fine Arts . </P> <P> The School presents an Evening Lecture Series in the Fall and Spring semesters, generally twice a week, featuring an international roster of speakers including artists talking on their own work and critics and scholars covering a range of historic subjects . The School's exhibition program, in its committed gallery space, was described by critic Mario Naves in the New York Observer as "one of the city's most significant venues for contemporary art ." </P> <P> In 2005, the school was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg . </P> <P> In 1914, in one of the many Manhattan properties Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and her husband owned, Gertrude Whitney established the Whitney Studio Club at 8 West 8th Street in Greenwich Village, next to her own MacDougal Alley studio . The club was intended as a facility where young artists could exhibit their works . When the Metropolitan Museum of Art rejected her offer in 1929 of a gift of new artworks, Whitney established the Whitney Museum of American Art, and in 1931 had architect Auguste L. Noel convert the three row houses at 8 - 12 West 8th Street into the museum's first home, as well as a residence for Whitney . In 1954, the museum moved uptown to new quarters, and the buildings, with the addition of #14, became the New York Studio School . </P>

New york studio school of drawing painting & sculpture