Draughtsman, painter, teacher and independent scholar — Timothy STOTZ is the founder and artistic director of Studio Escalier, a small private art school and art colony in France. He tutors students from all over the world in contemporary classical figure drawing and painting, and lectures at the Musee du Louvre on 17th to 19th century French art, as well as on the history of academic art education.
Mr. Stotz has exhibited his work in New York City, San Francisco, and Paris, and is represented in private collections on four continents. He has been the recipient of several distinguished grants, fellowships, and prizes for his painting, including: an extended Fulbright Grant for Painting to Madrid, Spain (1999-2001) where he was sponsored by the painter Antonio Lopez Garcia to study the works of Velazquez; a Vermont Studio Center fellowship, where he worked under acclaimed magic realist painter Gregory Gillespie; two grants for painting from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation; and a Stacey Foundation award for classical painting.
In 2001, Timothy Stotz, Nicole Michelle Tully and Anthony Ryder co-founded Studio Escalier in Argenton-Château, France — a one-of-a-kind figurative art program and international art colony – and co-taught its first programs.
Studio Escalier has since welcomed many hundreds of artists and aspiring art students, from more than 60 countries and 45 US states. Its former students can be found in some of the most competitive universities, art schools, creative companies, galleries and exhibitions in the world.
In 2007, Mr. Stotz expanded Studio Escalier’s operations to include Paris, where it currently offers drawing programs in combination with study inside the collection of the Musee du Louvre.
Timothy Stotz (b. 1969, Doylestown, Pennsylvania) received his MFA degree in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he studied under painter Andrew Forge, N.A., and performance artist Nigel Rolfe.
Mr. Stotz studied privately with Ted Seth Jacobs in France (1993-2003), and was a founding member of both the Jacob Collins Studio and the Water Street Atelier in Brooklyn, NY, while studying at the Graduate School of Figurative Art – New York Academy of Art (1995-97).
He received his B.A. cum laude studying Fine Arts at Randolph-Macon College (Ashland VA), where on the advice of upperclassman Duane Keiser he studied painting and art history under Raymond Berry.
The artist lives in Montmartre with his wife the painter Nicole Michelle Tully and their daughter, in the same atelier apartment where Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Suzanne Valadon first met, first worked together as artists, and fell in love.
Les Escaliers, Argenton-Chateau, France