The mission of the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts is to teach the foundational skills of drawing, painting, and sculpture in the figurative tradition. By its commitment to training students in these skills and an engagement with contemporary discourse, the Academy will empower a new generation of artists. Through its programs, the Academy is committed to enriching the cultural life of the community.
We are an Academy of professional artists that encourages individuality and innovation through skills-based training.
With a faculty of internationally-recognized artists and scholars, we offer a comprehensive, multi-year program of disciplined study, integrating rigorous studio instruction in drawing and painting with anatomy, sculpture, and twenty-first century approaches to the histories of art. Our geography, located along the Connecticut River and in the heart of the celebrated Lyme Art Colony, and between the metropolitan centers of Boston and New York, is imbued with history, and remains an active site of progressive artists’ congregation and camaraderie. Students at our Academy participate in this community, continuing an unbroken tradition of art education and practice while finding their own creative voice. From this unique vantage point and through their evolution, our legacy and future unites.
Welcome to the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts.
“They will become the painters and sculptors of the twenty-first century; they will become the positive force in the art world of tomorrow. It is they who will have the knowledge and the training in the traditions of the past needed to celebrate and to teach as we enter the hoped-for Renaissance in the Fine Arts of the third millennium.”
– Elisabeth Gordon Chandler, Founder, Lyme Academy of Fine Arts
“…many in the art world believe [Lyme Academy] has contributed to a renaissance of representational art.”
– New York Times, March 3, 2018
Founded by the sculptor Elisabeth Gordon Chandler in 1976, the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts began with a single, bold idea – to offer a traditional education in figurative and representational art at a time when academic principles had fallen out of favor. Intense observation and a structured, sequential approach to drawing, painting, and sculpture would provide the foundation on which confidence, creativity, and self-expression were built. Classes would be taught in the picturesque town of Old Lyme, Connecticut, a site of great art historical significance, and Elisabeth’s beloved home.
A faculty of recognized artists worked to execute Elisabeth’s plan. Robert Brackman, newly retired from teaching at the Art Students League in New York and a giant in his field, was among the Academy’s earliest and most revered teachers; he was followed by Deane G. Keller, whose lessons in drawing and painting had a profound impact on the Academy for more than twenty-five years.
As the quality of the Academy’s curriculum became more widely known, enrollment began to climb. By the 1980s, students were applying to study at the Academy from across the United States. The single sky-lit studio rented from the neighboring Lyme Art Association soon became too small; this led to the purchase and renovation of the historic John Sill House in 1986, which stands at the center of the Academy’s campus to this day. As the Academy continued to grow – north-lit studios, an art gallery, and a substantial student library were added on four acres of land in the town’s historic district of Old Lyme – Elisabeth’s vision, now shared by her husband, the sculptor Laci de Gerenday, seemed a model of success.
The decision to seek accreditation as a college in the early 1990s seemed a natural evolution, and in 1995 the Academy began granting Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees. But the requirements of this new role, and the infrastructure that it demanded, impeded the Academy’s historic focus on the fostering of students’ skills. This proved unsustainable, and the sacrifice too great. In 2018, twelve years after Elisabeth had passed, the Academy returned to her original mission, reclaiming its status as an Academy rather than a college, and operating better for the pause. No longer constrained by the requirements that came with a change in academic status, the Academy was free to return its focus to its program, and the students that they served. In 2021, with fresh leadership at its helm, the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts reopened its doors to students, and welcomed a new generation of success.
The Lyme Academy’s greatest resource is its cadre of leaders, volunteers, and instructors. These committed individuals provide the organization with the highest level of governance, expertise, and creativity.
The Lyme Academy’s greatest resource is its cadre of leaders, volunteers, and instructors. These committed individuals provide the organization with the highest level of governance, expertise, and creativity.
Mr. Duffy is the President of GO, which provides tutors to students in public schools throughout the Northeast; he is an adjunct professor at NYU on leadership and public sector & non-profit management.
Ms. Hansen was an English teacher, Department Head, and Division Head at Kingswood Oxford, Greenwich Academy, and Collegiate School; she is currently a search consultant at DRG Talent Advisory specializing in recruiting and coaching senior administrators for independent and charter schools.
Ms. Miller is a consultant on intellectual property and branding for Fortune 500 companies and was a small business owner on the Shoreline.
Judge Knierim is a trust and estates lawyer at Czepiga, Daly, Pope & Perry, a former state representative, a retired probate court judge and the former head of the probate court system for the state of Connecticut.
Dr. Bowes is the CEO of a national workforce development and placement company, America Works; she is an adjunct professor at Columbia University on Human Resource Management and Social Policy.
Mr. Allik is a painter and teacher who leads the Art Department at the Lyme/Old Lyme High School and trained at Wesleyan University and the New York Academy of Art.
Mr. Bachman is the retired COO of an international law firm based in Boston, former Army COL, and past adjunct professor in the business school of Boston University.
Ms. Barbieri is a representational painter who creates large scale, contemporary, naturalist art, and paints out of her studios in both Essex Connecticut, as well as Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Lincoln Chan is a native of Hong Kong where he studied and received a degree in design from that city’s highly selective Polytechnic University. While living in Essex and commuting to NYC for his design practice, he also takes on restoration project of historic homes for his private clients along the Eastern Shoreline.
Ms. Eder is a still life and plein air painter who trained at the New York Academy of Art and has been an instructor at Yale, the Lyme Art Association and Lyme Academy.
Mr. Grimaldi is a visual artist whose work primarily focuses on monochrome paintings and drawings. He has exhibited extensively throughout the US and abroad and has taught drawing, painting and anatomy for over twenty years at various institutions including the School of Visual Arts, National Academy, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Art Students League of New York. Currently, Grimaldi is the Director of the Departments of Drawing and Anatomy at the New York Academy of Art.
First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker joined the Lyme Academy Board of Trustees in December 2023.
Joshua Janson is an interior designer whose work can be found in homes throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. He is active in many philanthropic causes including the Boston Ballet, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and The Friends of the Boston Park Rangers Mounted Unit.
Ms. Joffray is a retired independent school administrator and a graduate of Lyme Academy, having studied with the Academy’s founder, Elisabeth Chandler.
Mr. Kelsey is the co-founder and managing principal of a real estate investment company, Hamilton Point Investments, and the Chair of the Finance Committee for the Town of Old Lyme.
Mr. Rosenshine is retired from marketing communications, having been CEO of BBDO Worldwide and a founder and first CEO of Omnicom Group, now serving on five philanthropic boards in CT and NYC.
Ms. Skelsey is an architect who trained at Tulane University.
Ms. Wilson is a registered architect and a former dancer with American Ballet Theatre. She is currently pursuing the study of classical figurative drawing and sculpture.
Jordan Sokol, Artistic Director
jordan@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232
Amaya Gurpide, Co-Artistic Director
amaya@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232
Wendy Bury, Managing Director
wendy@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232, ext. 203
Chad Fisher, Sculpture Director
chad@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232
Rick Lacey, Youth Program Director
rick@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232
Edmond Rochat, Continuing Education Director
edmond@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232
Cameron Paynter, Store Manager de Gerenday’s Fine Art Materials and Curiosities
cameron@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232, ext 208
Caitlin Perkins, Director of Academic Affairs
caitlin@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232, ext 202
Dave Dombroski, Facilities & Security Manager
dave@lymeacademy.edu
860.434.5232, ext 207
Bradley Mettin, Custodian
brad@lymeacademy.edu
Lyme Academy is a nonprofit, 501(c) (3) organization. The Academy is authorized to operate in the state of Connecticut by the Executive Director of the Office of Higher Education.
