The American Academy of the Fine Arts was an art institution founded in 1802 in New York City, to encourage appreciation and teaching of the classical style. It exhibited copies of classical works and encouraged artists to emulate the classical in their work. The mayor of New York city at the time, Richard Varick, and Gulian Verplanck, a New York politician, were some of the Academy's original organizers. Younger artists grew increasingly restive under its constraint, and in 1825 left to found the National Academy of Design.