David Kratz is a painter who lives and works in New York City. He works primarily in oils and focuses on figurative art.

In 2009, he was named the President of New York Academy of Art, one of the country’s leading graduates schools of fine art, where he oversees the training of 100 students each year. The school’s mission is to teach traditional skills and techniques in the service of vital contemporary art.

Kratz is unique in the history of the school’s leadership in that he also graduated from the Academy in 2008. At the MFA Diploma Show that year, his painting “Afternoon” was awarded the Vasari prize for best-in-show by the prestigious Italian paint maker, Vasari Oil Paints.

He has been exhibiting and curating for the past two years. In 2009, he curated Take Home a Nude, a show of 200 works at Sotheby’s, and Water / Bodies, a show of Academy-related artists, at the Eden Rock Gallery in St. Barth’s.


Group Shows

Water / Bodies, 2009, Eden Rock Gallery, St. Barth’s, French West Indies
Take Home a Nude 2009, Sotheby’s, New York, NY
Studio 7 Fine Art Gallery Group Exhibition, 2009, Bernardsville, NJ
Manhunt, Spring 2008, New York Academy of Art
Works on paper, Spring 2007, New York Academy of Art