Important information about tourism in Costa Rica - Florida

The Famous Artists School, which was formed more than 70 years ago, was an early pioneer of remote learning. 

Some tantalizing glimpses of the correspondence course were featured in a half-hour TV program called "Operation Success." The Norman Rockwell Museum has posted the show on YouTube.

The school hired a team of professional instructors who in turn had studied with the master illustrators. It was the job of these F.A.S. instructors to read and respond to the student work and to keep their files up to date. 

The voiceover says that this instructor is creating a painted criticism, based on student efforts mailed to the school from thousands of miles away.

The instructor redraws the student's composition and paints a "better" version. The amount of care and labor that went into this process is impressive, and the company became very successful. 

But alas, it eventually fell victim to corruption and mismanagement, as David Apatoff recounts in his book on Al Dorne. 

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• Here are my previous blog posts about the Famous Artists School and its instructors. 

• It's still possible to find vintage sets of the Famous Artists Course. 

• The Norman Rockwell Museum produced a single book about the history of the Famous Artists School. 

• The other great source of instruction about mid-20th century illustration is Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis.