St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School

Each school year, Lower School Art Teacher Deborah Pollak creates an original multicultural visual art curriculum for our youngest Saints. This year her students (junior kindergarten through second grade) have enthusiastically immersed themselves in the study of the art and culture of France. Ms. Pollak was inspired by her recent summer APT grant where she traveled to France and participated in an intensive painting course.

So far this year, her students have studied about the history of the Eiffel Tower, the French aspects of the production of the Statue of Liberty (last year they learned about the New York aspects of this gift), the purpose of advertising kiosks, and the magnificence of Claude Monet’s water lily gardens at Giverny. Recently, students studied the creation of Toile de Jouy fabrics and the museum in Jouy-en-Josas, which helped them to develop actual printing onto fabrics.

If you visit Ms. Pollak’s art lab this year, you may hear French music playing softly in the background as students create their masterpieces. Her students learned that two Frenchmen invented hot air balloons, so some classes painted huge balloons with gondolas and passengers. Sunflowers inspired many of the young painters, while others made still-life drawings of a huge collection of French copper cookware that was brought into class. In addition, the classes studied Leonardo da Vinci, discussed the Loire Valley region, and explored da Vinci’s home in Amboise through the photographs of du Clos Lucé.