My formal education as a painter began at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. I studied there for five years and was also an instructor for four of those years, teaching anatomy, drawing and painting. The focus of the curriculum was a strict academic approach to painting and drawing based largely on the principles of art as taught in the painting academies of Europe in the 19th century. In this system, the pupil studies with a master until the student has become a master as well. Often the pupil then becomes a teacher, passing on a continuous body of knowledge, generation after generation, always with a strict adherence to observing nature and painting directly from life while focusing on the human figure. In my case, the instructors at my school are at the end of an unbroken chain of master/pupil relationships spanning generations and centuries, which includes the 19th century master painters Gerome, Delaroche, Gros, David, and Ingres, each who successively taught the next. Since leaving Italy, I have lived and worked in Gainesville, Florida, producing the paintings which you see here and selling them primarily through galleries and exhibitions in America and Europe. All of the pictures were created with a traditional approach to the craft of painting, in that they were all painted from life, with careful observations of nature and requiring a live model to pose in the studio. These pictures consistently reveal what inspires me most -- light, nature, water and humans. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me. --Anthony Ackrill