Richard Amsel’s time at the University of the Arts (then known as The Philadelphia College of Art) played an important part of his formative years. He attended there from 1965 to 1969. Several of Amsel’s classmates would go on to very successful creative careers of their own. Among them were the Quay Brothers, Stephen Quay and Timothy Quay – twin artists, filmmakers, and animators, acclaimed for their work on such films as Street of Crocodiles (1986), which was reportedly a

I’m saddened by the news of John “Jack” Warren Freas’ passing yesterday, December 29 th . Freas was one of Richard Amsel’s art teachers at the Philadelphia College of Art (later renamed The University of the Arts, which closed in 2024). An accomplished artist and illustrator himself, he was also an avid book collector, and ran a longstanding antiquarian bookstore, Tamerlane Books, from his home in Havertown, PA. I met Freas there in June of 2017, along with his lovely wif