Auseklis Ozols

Who is Auseklis Ozols?

Auseklis Ozols is an American painter and fine arts educator, based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ozols was born in Latvia in 1941. He moved to the U.S. with his family in 1950 and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and also at the Trenton School of Industrial Arts.

Inspired by the model of Thomas Eakins and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Ozols founded the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts in 1978 to gather together artists and aspiring artists and to teach Classical techniques, stressing working from life. As of 2007, he continues to actively serve as both the Director and an instructor.

Ozols's work is well regarded by fellow painters. He is noted for being fluent with a wide repertory of artistic techniques and styles seldom mastered by a single individual. His noteworthy students have included artists Matt Rinard, Tony Green, Beverly K. Effinger, and Robert William Guthrie.

His daughter, Saskia Ozols, is also a painter and instructor at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts..