Daniel Graves is the founder and director of the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. The school is dedicated to providing the highest level of instruction in classical drawing, painting and sculpture. His philosophy demands a return to discipline in art, to canons of beauty, and to the direct study of nature and the Old Masters as the foundation for great painting.
Graves graduated Cum Laude from the Maryland Art Institute in 1972, where he studied anatomy and painting with Joseph Sheppard, then pursued etching and history painting with Richard Serrin at the Villa Schifanoia Graduate School of Fine Art in Florence. After studying with Richard Lack at the Atelier Lack in Minnesota, where he also taught etching, he returned to Florence. It was here that he came under the influence of Pietro Annigoni, perhaps best known for his portrait of the young Queen Elizabeth II.
Graves has had numerous solo and group shows in Europe and the United States, and his portraits, interiors, still lifes, and etchings are part of private and public collections world-wide.
Bio from askart.com