{"id":2441,"date":"2025-03-25T12:06:54","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T12:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/25\/the-art-of-usefulness-inside-the-fraught-world-of-studio-assistants\/"},"modified":"2025-03-25T12:06:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T12:06:55","slug":"the-art-of-usefulness-inside-the-fraught-world-of-studio-assistants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/25\/the-art-of-usefulness-inside-the-fraught-world-of-studio-assistants\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Usefulness: Inside the Fraught World of Studio Assistants"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Assistants to artist Johann Le Guillerm take part in the installation of his work La Transumante<\/em> at Bordeaux\u2019s water mirror as part of the FAB \u2013 Bordeaux Metropole International Arts Festival. Photo by THIBAUD MORITZ\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Graduating from art school can be a slap in the face for young artists. Many depart without a real understanding of how to become a working artist, and even those with a plan leave behind a world in which they had free studio space and use of expensive equipment, time to develop their art, fellow artists with whom to share ideas and professional instructors who gave valuable feedback. They enter a world of high rent, small apartments and low-paying jobs that may have little relationship to the skills they developed in school. The professional artists they encounter may have little interest in or time to spare for mentoring, and their fellow graduates may be similarly adrift: unsure of how to meet the right people, land jobs in the arts or find the time or space to keep creating.<\/p>\n

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All that education and training, and what do they have to show for it? That depends. Claudia Bitran<\/a> earned an MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 and, shortly afterward, was waitressing at a restaurant in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. (Something she did for a number of years.) But within a year of receiving her master\u2019s degree, she also had a separate gig: a part-time job five mornings a week working as an assistant to Jorge Tacla<\/a>, a Chilean-born painter who lives and works in New York City. In his studio, she handled administrative tasks\u2014answering the phone, hiring photographers, cleaning up, designing his catalogues, sorting his archives, writing emails on his behalf in both English and Spanish, talking to museum curators and his gallery\u2014and priming the occasional canvas.<\/p>\n

Bitran also spent time making arrangements with Candace Moeller<\/a>, the director of New York\u2019s Cristin Tierney<\/a> Gallery, which has represented Tacla for fifteen years. After many practical conversations, the talks had become cordial enough for Moeller to ask Bitran, \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d Bitran suddenly had the rare opportunity to discuss her own painting, which she had been doing in her free time, and the results were studio visits by Moeller and, later, by Cristin Tierney. \u201cCristin saw my work, and she must have liked it,\u201d Bitran told Observer. \u201cCristin said, \u2018Okay, we\u2019ll give you a show.\u2019\u201d The resultant solo exhibition took place in 2022, and Bitran has been represented by the gallery ever since.<\/p>\n

Many newly minted artists look for jobs as artists\u2019 assistants in the hopes of both continuing their education and getting noticed. They hear about openings from galleries whose artists make it known they need help around the studio or from other artists, and they see these gigs as a way to meet collectors, critics, dealers, curators and successful artists, praying that someone someday will ask \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d It doesn\u2019t happen often, but the fact that it worked out that way for Bitran means it does happen.<\/p>\n

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SEE ALSO: <\/i><\/b>Can Art Heal Our Relationship With Nature? \u201cSustenance & Land\u201d Offers a Nuanced Response<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dana Van Horn<\/a>, who worked for eight years as a studio assistant for painter Jack Beal<\/a>, saw different but equally valuable benefits from his assistantship. \u201cThe art world is based on connections,\u201d he told Observer. \u201cKnowing and being associated with Beal gave me credibility with galleries and collectors,\u201d and that led to exhibitions, commissions and sales. Van Horn was never paid by Beal, but he did get room and board at the artist\u2019s home in Oneonta, New York, and he was allowed to stay in the artist\u2019s loft in downtown Manhattan. One floor below that loft was the home and studio of painter Chuck Close<\/a>, whom he came to know and for whom he did various paying jobs\u2014\u201cthere was some construction work. I sanded his floors, I babysat his kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

For others, the experience of working as an artist\u2019s assistant is not as rewarding. Indeed, some young hopefuls have had notably bad experiences working as studio assistants<\/a>. In 2023, more than a dozen former assistants to sculptor Tom Sachs alleged workplace abuses<\/a>, while Damien Hirst<\/a> is said more often than not to have his assistants produce his artworks in toto while he gets full credit. The luckiest of the unlucky, perhaps, are those who perform menial tasks for meager pay. The environmental artist Christo<\/a>, for instance, sometimes used hundreds of assistants on his major projects. His wife and collaborator, Jeanne-Claude<\/a>, told Observer, that they \u201care not hired as artists but as workers. We generally need people to carry heavy things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expectations vs. reality<\/h3>\n

Given that some assistants and artists have notably good, long-lasting relationships\u2014Tom Ferrara and Willem de Kooning<\/a> come to mind, as do David Dawson and Lucien Freud<\/a>\u2014it\u2019s easy to forget that studio assistant is just a job. Making assistants feel comfortable and appreciated is not the goal. Neither is praising what assistants create on their own time. \u201cOnce upon a time, I had an apprentice,\u201d sculptor William King<\/a> told Observer, \u201cbut there were days when there was nothing for him to do. I asked him to clean up the shop, and he didn\u2019t want to do that. He was a budding artist, not a janitor.\u201d Muralist Richard Haas<\/a> noted once that \u201cI have better conversations with people who are older,\u201d and Alex Katz<\/a> said, \u201cI don\u2019t talk much with my assistants.\u201d Jonathan Williams<\/a>, a studio assistant to Frank Stella<\/a>, told Observer that his experience with the artist did not include much conversation other than shop talk. \u201cEverything that mattered with Stella was the work at hand, and we really didn\u2019t talk about anything else. I don\u2019t remember him ever asking me much about myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

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David Dawson, the subject of Lucian Freud\u2019s Sunny Morning \u2013 Eight Legs<\/em>, was the artist\u2019s studio assistant. The Lucian Freud Archive<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Being a studio assistant is \u201cnot a stepping stone for most artists,\u201d Mark Tribe<\/a>, a painter and current chair of the MFA Fine Arts program at New York\u2019s School of Visual Arts, bluntly told Observer. He noted that some young artists become disappointed, but most of the assistants he has known as students found the experience helpful. \u201cThey tell me that they learned so much, from how to make things to how to run a studio as a small business to how to manage a group of people.\u201d He added that any art-related job will help a young artist build community with other artists and expose them to what is going on in the industry they are trying to enter.<\/p>\n

Artists, like other employers, come in all flavors: some are generous and encouraging, while others are less so or not at all. \u201cThey get paid by the hour, and they work in the mornings, so they have time to devote to their own work,\u201d Jorge Tacla said. \u201cThey remain with me until it is time for them to move on to other endeavors,\u201d which is how his employment relationship with Claudia Bitran ended. She added that she \u201cwas getting jobs teaching and invited for some residencies, and Jorge said to me, \u2018You really should leave. You have other, better things to do.\u2019\u201d His only request was that she look for and train her replacement, which she did. \u201cI knew someone, one of my best friends, who was bilingual and needed a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Losing a studio assistant can be quite disruptive for an artist, who then needs to train new people who will hopefully stay a long while and accommodate themselves to the artist\u2019s needs. Mark Tribe, who has employed assistants for twenty years, said that his assistants stay as long as he can keep them. \u201cThey learn to understand me and how my mind works, and it takes a while for the next assistant to learn all that.\u201d Painter Susan Schwalb<\/a> has employed studio assistants, usually just one at a time, since 2000. \u201cMy current assistant has been with me for around eight years, and before that, I had someone else for ten.\u201d Her assistants handle a variety of tasks, including \u201ccomputer work, packing artwork for exhibitions and organizing my studio. My current assistant is also a photographer, so she does all the photos I need and handles my website updates.\u201d Of her current assistant, Schwalb said, \u201cI hope she never leaves,\u201d but they all do eventually. Being an assistant is not what they went to school to do.<\/p>\n

Studio assistants aren\u2019t apprentices<\/h3>\n

The artists\u2019 assistants of today are very different from the journeymen apprentices of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Then, the relationship between master artist and apprentice was that of teacher and pupil, and young hopefuls were contracted out to artists for specified periods of time, doing certain duties in exchange for instruction. Often, these duties included helping the artist complete pieces, though there was plenty of gruntwork (e.g., grinding pigments, preparing surfaces). One began as an apprentice, became a journeyman and then a master. The studio of Peter Paul Rubens<\/a>, for example, hosted such promising apprentices as Anthony Van Dyck<\/a> and Franz Snyders<\/a>, who worked directly on the master\u2019s paintings.<\/p>\n

By the 17th Century, the rise of the officially recognized art academies in Europe spelled the end of the guild system, although apprentice-type conditions lingered on, if in a different form. Academies were the creation of artists who wanted their profession elevated into something higher than artisan; they founded some of the first structured art schools. With the advent of Romanticism, there was a greater emphasis on individual style and on working alone. Being able to do the same kind of art as one of the great masters was no longer highly regarded, as distinctiveness became the predominant artistic virtue.<\/p>\n

Still, the master-disciple relationship continued in various forms and still exists today. Eugene Delacroix, often considered the father of Romanticism in painting, worked with several apprentices (most of whom are not household names), as did classicist Jacques Louis David<\/a>, who taught such notable talents as Baron Antoine-Jean Gros<\/a>, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres<\/a> and Th\u00e9odore G\u00e9ricault. Jackson Pollock<\/a> worked first with Thomas Hart Benton<\/a> in something like an apprenticeship and later with Mexican revolutionary muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros<\/a>. Pollock learned about painting from both artists and made contacts that helped him later on\u2014exactly what most young assistants still hope for.<\/p>\n

The prolific artist with scores of assistants and \u201cfabricators\u201d is more and more the norm. Sculptor Henry Moore<\/a> made small models and handed them to others to turn into large pieces. Andy Warhol<\/a>\u2019s Factory had an assembly line of workers churning out works pieces his signature. (George Condo was a diamond duster there.) While some would argue that art\u2019s value lies in the process of making it and not solely the conception in the artist\u2019s mind, the complicated processes of creating works at scale to live up to the modern definition of \u2018successful artist\u2019 make employing studio assistants a necessity.<\/p>\n

Working for an uber-successful artist can have downsides. Developing a unique artistic voice or simply maintaining the energy to create while working for a Koons or a Hirst may feel impossible. Artists looking to establish their own careers need to stay alert to signs that their time with a master artist has lasted too long and is becoming an obstacle instead of an advantage. Constantin Brancusi<\/a>, the Romanian-born sculptor who left Rodin\u2019s studio, notably said, \u201cNothing will ever grow in the shade of a big tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joel Meisner<\/a>, on the other hand, chose a different path. Not long after he received his MFA from Columbia University in 1960, Meisner got married, and he needed to support a wife and then a child. By chance, he happened to read in a magazine that the assistant to Jacques Lipchitz<\/a>\u2014the Lithuanian-born School of Paris sculptor who had been living in New York City since 1941\u2014had been drafted into the army, and Meisner called the 70-year-old sculptor to ask for the job.<\/p>\n

Lipchitz was not overly encouraging when it came to Meisner\u2019s own artwork; after reviewing the younger man\u2019s portfolio, he said, \u201cYou should go to museums more and try not to invent things that have already been invented.\u201d But he did give him the job. Meisner helped Lipchitz make enlargements from the artist\u2019s maquettes, restored models and saw to it that the foundries Lipchitz used made the sculpture editions properly. In time, Meisner became an expert not in sculpture but in foundry work. \u201cThe problem that Lipchitz had with foundries was that the nuances of his work were being lost,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was always retouching the waxes. Over time, I developed a process that helped duplicate the nuances, the fingerprints, as it were, of the sculpture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meisner called working for Lipchitz \u201cthe best thing that ever happened to me. I found that foundry work was something I really could do and do well. I rededicated my life to founding other people\u2019s art. I made a judgment on my own work that maybe I\u2019m really not that good, but I could use my understanding of art to help other artists. I also realized that I could, frankly, make a better living at foundry work than trying to sell art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after starting work with Lipchitz, Meisner convinced a commercial foundry on Long Island to let him establish an artist\u2019s section. \u201cWhat really opened the door for me was telling the foundry owner that I was Lipchitz\u2019s assistant.\u201d In 1973, Meisner bought the foundry, renaming it the Joel Meisner Foundry (now Meisner Casting), and thanks in part to Lipchitz, works with scores of artists all over the country.<\/p>\n

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