The Yale Norfolk School of Art, established in 1948, is an intensive six week undergraduate summer residency program for 26 rising seniors.
Each summer The Yale Norfolk School of Art seeks to bring together a diverse group of students who have demonstrated a passion in artmaking and are exemplary community members to participate in a rigorous environment of artistic practice, learning and growth. The school is located on the picturesque Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate in Norfolk, Connecticut and is supported by the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Trust. The Trust generously subsidizes much of the cost of attendance. Each Spring, Deans and/or program chairs serving at colleges, universities, and professional art schools across the country and abroad nominate up to three candidates currently enrolled as juniors in their programs to apply for admission to Yale Norfolk.
Yale Norfolk has a celebrated legacy of alumni who have gone on to make significant contributions to the field of art and credit the Yale Norfolk School of Art with a profound impact on their lives and art. Some of the alumni include Eva Hesse, Sheila Hicks, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Vija Celmins, Sarah Oppenheimer, Sarah Sze and Mickalene Thomas, among many others. The synergy between Yale Norfolk as an extension of the Yale School of Art in New Haven and the community of Norfolk helps to make the region a destination for culture.
Yale School of Art is renowned for its MFA programs in Graphic Design, Painting/Printmaking, Photography and Sculpture. Although technical facilities are limited, Yale Norfolk accepts students working in all visual media. Participants come to Norfolk from all over the country, and, increasingly, internationally and from many different backgrounds. All students are hosted by families in the town of Norfolk. Faculty and staff live and work on campus. The diversity within the faculty group and the visiting lecturers help to make discussions inclusive and substantive.
The structure of the Yale Norfolk program is provided by the classes, responsive workshops and the one-on-one critiques offered to each student by the faculty and through a series of lectures over the summer. In addition five visiting lecturers (scholars and artists) enrich the summer’s discourse with short visits to campus. These lectures and seminars also seek the participation of the local public community.
Yale Norfolk draws its vitality from the talent and energy of its students, its distinguished resident faculty and visiting artists and scholars, who provide an atmosphere in which students are encouraged to deepen their creative discipline and develop an artmaking process to launch into their senior years. Artists who have attended Yale Norfolk cherish the experience as a turning point, a realization of individual creativity and a time for building a network of mutual support for the future as artists.
Open Studios are scheduled at the end of June in order for the public to witness the vitality of Yale Norfolk.