The American Academy in Rome is a leading American overseas center for independent studies and advanced research in the fine arts and humanities. It began as a collaborative effort in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exhibition when a small group, including architects Charles Follen McKim and Daniel Burnham, painters John LaFarge and Francis Millet, and sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French, resolved to create a center to study art amid the classical tradition of ancient Rome.