During the spring of 1973, a group of volunteers from Lower Merion public and nonpublic schools approached several alumni of The Barnes Foundation art appreciation courses and asked them to present one or more informal talks to school classes. This led to the development of a more extensive course that took place during the entire school year and enriched the children's regular curriculum. Violette de Mazia suggested a basic outline for the course and a syllabus committee developed the content under Ernest J. Pick’s leadership.

Since the fall of 2004, The Foundation has offered this course at the Cab Calloway School of the Arts for 6th and 11th graders. The course for the 6th graders uses the methods and principles developed by Violette de Mazia during her 50 years of teaching at The Barnes Foundation. These principles are based on Albert Barnes ideas as well as John Dewey's ideas for education as found in his book, Art as Experience. Dewey was a member of the Foundation's staff and its first Director of Education.

The course uses works of art such as music, literature, painting, and sculpture, along with other appropriate aids, and relates them to everyday experiences from which, through their creative transformation by the artist, art is created.

Toniann Degregory and Richard Hanel, teachers at Cab Calloway, assist Foundation instructors with the program. The 6th graders are taught by David Nolan and Martha Marsey, both students of the Violette de Mazia Foundation courses taught in the galleries of The Barnes Foundation. Wilmington artist Marilyn Bauman, The Foundation's Director of Education, teaches the 11th graders.

Aaron Lehr, an 11th grader involved in The Foundation's course at Cab
Calloway School of the Arts, discusses the aesthetic qualities in
one of Mitch Lyons' clay prints during a visit to Lyons' exhibit at
the school gallery in January 2005.

About Cab Calloway School of the Arts >