The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
The Neighborhood Art School at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House was a community art program based in the Hill District for younger people.
Samuel Rosenberg started the school around 1919 with about nine students. As enrollment expanded, the school rented a nearby building and equipped three studios: one for drawing and painting, one for clay modeling, and one for advanced students and a Children’s Art Museum featuring an exhibit loaned by the Carnegie Museum of Art. By the mid-1920s, enrollment had grown to approximately 150 students. With the construction of the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House annex in the late 1920s, the school was given additional space in the complex. As the school grew through the years, additional staff members were hired, including Armando Del-Cimmute, William Shulgold, Frank Vittor, Jennie Stern Harris, and Samuel Filner, as well as contributions from various artistically inclined members of the Jewish and general communities.
The Neighborhood Art School was designed to encourage an interest in the arts through exposure to fine art, artists, and museums and to identify latent talent in youth. In addition to studio work, the school provided scholarships to the Carnegie Institute of Technology School of Fine Arts and sometimes underwrote memberships to the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. Starting in 1924, the school hosted an annual art exhibition in the Hill District featuring the work of students of the school.