Artwork from Past Students at FSS

TJ Hampton|March 15, 2022

Student artwork from the class of ‘19 hanging in the upper school hallway. The large portrait is a student from Deborah’s Advanced 2D Studies course.
An alumni’s self-portrait hanging in the senior hallway. This painting is the original, unlike the others which are prints.
Alumni self-portraits hanging in the spiral staircase that connects lower and upper school. This collection was part of a “foreshortening project” in Advanced 2D Studies.

Past students’ work hanging in the upper school hallway as a student works. You can see that even sketches can find their place on the walls of FSS.
Two students working in front of two alumni’s artwork on the wall. One piece is a digital print and the other is a painting.

Our walls at Friends Select are almost always decorated with artwork created by current and past students. These artworks range from simple sketches to large-scale paintings.

One way student work ends up in the hallway is when students donate their work to the school. Donating work is a way for students to leave their influence at the school after they’re gone. In recent years, the school has started making prints or copies of students’ work so the artist can keep their pieces while also having them in the school. 

Another way student work ends up at FSS is through the annual “purchase prize”. The purchase prize is an award that was granted to one student every year during the end of the year art exhibition.

Other art you may see around the school is from alumni that have donated to the school. According to Deborah Caiola, Chair of the Art Department, “There is an alumni exhibition in the Select Gallery each spring and throughout the years there have been some alum who have donated their work to the school.” Alumni don’t only donate their art out of kindness, but it also gives them a chance to give back to the community that they grew up in.