(Renaissance Publications is now Mission: Renaissance)
Founded by Larry and Sheila Gluck in 1975, today Mission: Renaissance comprises more than 16 studios across Southern California. Serving children, teens and adults for more than 45 years, Mission: Renaissance has long been recognized as the largest fine art program in the world.
Inspiration for the school’s name derives from the popular 1960’s television series, Mission: Impossible, Larry and Sheila’s mission being the creation of a Renaissance in fine art instruction. While seemingly impossible, their mission is truly being achieved.
But to fully appreciate Mission: Renaissance, one must view it against the greater backdrop of fine art training today. In other words, one must understand what sets it apart from every other art school and college.
Mission: Renaissance was founded on a principle wholly at odds with the common misconception that one either possesses talent or doesn’t; the myth that one is born with a fixed allotment of creativity which can never change.
In stark contrast to this, we believe anyone can acquire talent, anyone can learn how to express themselves artistically – given the right instruction. That’s why Mission: Renaissance is home to The Gluck Method of fine art instruction, and therein lies the key to unlocking talent. All our instructors are trained at The Gluck Academy, located at our headquarters in Pasadena, California; and each are certified in Larry’s breakthrough process before they are allowed to teach. Every studio exclusively utilizes The Gluck Method, which is founded on the underlying principles of drawing and painting taught to master painters since the Renaissance.
In times of old, apprentices were first taught how to construct drawings from basic lines and shapes. When they achieved a sound degree of competence, they were next taught how to create the illusion of depth through shading (otherwise known as tone). Only then were they taught how to paint, how to mix and combine colors. Sadly, this fundamental sequence is missing from art institutions today, moreover, no complete, step-by-step process of instruction exists. So students graduate, with gaping holes in their art education.
The Gluck Method follows in the classic tradition by instructing students in the time-honored sequence, and provides the first complete series of courses which provide a thorough grounding in fine art skills. Larry Gluck, himself a successful representational painter, dedicated more than twenty-five years to unearthing and codifying the exact steps required to take anyone from novice to artist.
Classes are purposely kept small to favor individualized instruction and maximum progress. Students learn at their own pace in a non-competitive and encouraging atmosphere. The results are, quite frankly, unprecedented. It is not uncommon for an adult student to progress from beginning drawing to oils within 20 classes. Nor is it uncommon for children to sell their work and to routinely win art competitions.
Then there’s the art college graduates who are astounded to discover just how deep those aforementioned holes in their art education are; and who are equally astounded at the improvement in their work once those holes have been filled at Mission: Renaissance.
Every student has a story. There are those who have gone on to become successful full-time artists; those who use what they’ve learned in their day-day professions – from architects to animators, from fashion designers to film directors. There are those who come from Europe and the Americas, from Australia and Asia for intensive, full-time training. And finally, there are those who simply like to paint in their spare time, to share their work with family and friends. For at Mission: Renaissance, creativity is the realm of every man, woman and child.
In the end, our focus is not to provide a rigid set of rules, but an unshakable foundation upon which the artist can grow. With that foundation firmly in place, only then is the artist free to create with excellence and originality.
We believe that everyone deserves the real, fundamental basics of art and we know that anyone can acquire art skills when taught our easy-to-understand method.
Larry pioneered the first complete step-by-step fine art program, isolating and codifying the principles of drawing and painting. Through the course of his teaching, he came across many a student who had attended art school, but who had graduated with gaping holes in their art education. It became all too evident that art institutions had abandoned traditional principles-the same principles that were the backbone of the Renaissance, the very same principles taught to the great masters throughout history.
Larry dedicated himself to unearthing and imparting this lost knowledge, but accomplished something more-something unprecedented in the history of art education. Using his revolutionary method, not only did students with natural talent succeed, but students who considered themselves devoid of any talent were equally successful and became competent artists. Perhaps that one unique factor made Mission: Renaissance what it is today: the largest fine art program in the world.
Any artist worthy of note passes on his hard-won wisdom to an apprentice or two, but in the case of Larry Gluck, thanks to all he has set forth, his apprentices truly number in the tens of thousands. A once forbidden world is now open to all-a world where anyone is free to create and express themselves, to celebrate the glory and beauty of life through art.