Students in Visual Arts Faculty Daniel Herwitt’s Advanced Drawing and Painting Portfolio class took a trip on November 12 to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to branch out of their comfort zones in the art world by learning and discovering new styles and techniques. On the trip, students explored the works of German Artist Gabriele Münter, a post World War I era artist who worked with expressionalism.
According to the 2025 Upper School course catalog, the class is open to juniors and seniors who want to explore art at a deeper “college-level experience” and are considering submitting their completed portfolio in their applications to colleges. So far, the class has studied both historical and contemporary art with the students engaging in monthly art critiques as a way to train their artistic eye.
Loren Bullen ’26 said, “this class has really helped me grow as an artist and become more versatile and well rounded as an individual.” Bullen continued, “[Herwitt] has encouraged me to stray from realism [Bullen’s typical medium] and branch out into expressionism,” the goal being to not “limit us to one specific genre and style.”
After having visited the museum, Bullen said that she was inspired to work with abstract elements “without being very intricate and portraying something real and concrete…I found myself not caring so much if the form is perfect to a T,” she said. “I’m trying to embrace the mistakes and a freer form.” Bullen has found that she has progressively become more confident in her artwork, utilizing difference and change where she once would have shied away from those elements.
The museum experience has allowed Bullen to see how other artists have interpreted different techniques such as crosshatching and gesture drawing to give a voice to their art. “You’re face to face with the painting and can see the brush strokes and the texture as opposed to looking at your screen and [seeing] pixels,” she said. Bullen learned from and applied these styles to build and create a reflection of her life, which is the ultimate goal of a portfolio.
“Being in a museum setting is a lot better than just seeing [art] on the screen. It’s more personal…you can put yourself in the shoes of the painter or the artist,” Bullen said, “Seeing all the different possibilities in the art world was very inspiring for me,” and she looks forward to seeing where her newfound knowledge of art takes her.