Tribeca Ball is the Academy’s spring benefit and, above all, a celebration of the next generation of artists. Proceeds fund scholarships and sustain the Academy’s mission to train emerging artists through rigorous technical education, critical dialogue and a lasting commitment to figurative and representational art. The school was founded in 1982 by artists, scholars and patrons including Andy Warhol, and it still exists to give artists the skills to make serious contemporary work.

The evening takes over all six floors of 111 Franklin Street. Guests move through the studios during cocktails, meeting more than a hundred emerging artists at work, then continue to dinner in Wilkinson Hall. A separate Studio Party ticket covers the studios alone, for guests who want the working floors rather than the seated dinner.

It is one of the busiest nights in the downtown art calendar. The 22nd edition drew over 900 guests from the worlds of art, fashion, media and business and raised more than $860,000 for scholarships and public programming. Recent honorees include Peter M. Brant, Kenny Scharf and Amy Sherald.