Type | Private art school |
---|---|
Established | 1907 |
Endowment | $36.0 million (2019) [1] |
President | David C. Howse |
Academic staff | 500 |
Students | 1,390 |
Undergraduates | 1,063 |
Postgraduates | 327 |
Location | , , United States |
Campus | Urban 4 acres (1.6 ha) |
Colors | New teal, paper white, black |
Website | cca.edu |
The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private [2] art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in San Francisco; in 2022, the Oakland campus was closed and merged into the San Francisco campus. CCA enrolls[ when? ] approximately 1,239 undergraduates and 380 graduate students. [3]
CCA was founded in 1907 by Frederick Meyer in Berkeley as the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts during the height of the Arts and Crafts movement. The Arts and Crafts movement originated in Europe during the late 19th century as a response to the industrial aesthetics of the machine age. Followers of the movement advocated an integrated approach to art, design, and craft. [4]
In 1908 the school was renamed California School of Arts and Crafts, and in 1936 it became the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC). [5]
The college's Oakland campus location was acquired in 1922, when Meyer bought the four-acre James Treadwell estate at Broadway and College Avenue. Two of its buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places. [6] After the San Francisco campus was opened, the Oakland campus continued to house the more traditional, craft based studios like the art glass, jewelry metal arts, printmaking, painting, sculpture and ceramic programs.
In 1940 a Master of Fine Arts program was established. [7]
In the 1980s, the college began renting various locations in San Francisco, and in 1996 it opened a campus in the city's Design District, converting a former Greyhound maintenance building. [8]
In 2003 the college changed its name to California College of the Arts. [5]
In 2016 it was decided to close the Oakland campus and consolidate all activities at the San Francisco campus. The final day of classes at Oakland was May 6, 2022. The college said it will "redevelop the campus with community gathering spaces, affordable housing, office space for arts nonprofits and bike parking while preserving the campus’s cluster of historic buildings and trees." [9]
Clifton Hall, one of the dormitories at the Oakland campus, was bought by the city of Oakland to use for public housing. [10] Other parts of the Oakland campus remained unused in 2024, with plans to create a mixed-use development with hundreds of residential units. [11]
CCA offers 22 undergraduate and 10 graduate majors. [12] In 2021, CCA unveiled a BFA in Comics. [13] CCA confers the bachelor of fine arts (BFA), bachelor of arts (BA), bachelor of architecture (BArch), master of fine arts (MFA), master of arts (MA), master of architecture (MArch), master of advanced architectural design (MAAD), masters of design (MDes) [12] and master of business administration (MBA) degrees.
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, located near the San Francisco campus in a facility on Kansas St., is a forum for contemporary culture. In 2013 the Wattis Institute recruited a new director, Anthony Huberman, formerly of Artist's Space in New York. [14]
In the U.S. News & World Report rankings for 2020, CCA ranked #10 in the country for graduate fine arts programs, [15] #4 in graphic design, [16] and #6 in ceramics. [17] PayScale lists[ when? ] CCA as the #1 art school in the United States for return on investment and #4 for average alumni salary (bachelor's degree). [18] [19] As of 2022, Niche rated CCA with an overall grade of B− (with B− for academics, A+ for diversity, and B− for value), reporting an acceptance rate of 85%, graduation rate of 67%, and average alumni starting salary of $29,400. [2] The average class size is 13 for undergraduate programs and 12 for graduate. [20] The student to faculty ratio is 8:1. [20]
CCA is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), and the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).
Bernard Ralph Maybeck was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Frederick Heinrich Wilhelm Meyer was a designer and art educator prominent in the Arts and Crafts Movement. He was a long-time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Marvin Bentley Lipofsky was an American glass artist. He was one of the six students that Studio Glass founder Harvey Littleton instructed in a program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall 1962 and spring 1963. He was a central figure in the dissemination of the American Studio Glass Movement, introducing it to California through his tenure as an instructor at the University of California, Berkeley and the California College of Arts and Crafts.
Established in 1998, the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts is a contemporary art center in San Francisco, California, US, and part of the California College of the Arts. It holds exhibitions, lectures, and symposia, releases publications, and runs a residency program, Wattis.
Capp Street Project is an artist residency program that was originally located at 65 Capp Street in San Francisco, California. CSP was established as a program to nurture experimental art making in 1983 with the first visual arts residency in the United States dedicated solely to the creation and presentation of new art installations and conceptual art. The Capp Street Project name and concept has existed since 1983, although the physical space which the residency and exhibition program occupied has changed several times.
Renny Pritikin is an American curator, museum professional, writer, poet, and educator. He was the chief curator of San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum from 2014 to 2018. He was Director of the Richard L. Nelson Gallery and the Fine Arts Collection at the University of California, Davis from 2004 to 2012.
Charlie Castaneda and Brody Reiman are two contemporary artists who work together to form castaneda/reiman.
William Seltzer Rice was an American woodblock print artist, art educator and author, associated with the Arts and Crafts movement in Northern California.
Robin Gianattassio-Malle is an American journalist and producer specializing in the use of aural and visual media and is founder and executive director of Blue Egg Media, established in 2008.
Viola Frey was an American artist working in sculpture, painting and drawing, and professor emerita at California College of the Arts. She lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and was renowned for her larger-than-life, colorfully glazed clay sculptures of men and women, which expanded the traditional boundaries of ceramic sculpture.
Lynn Marie Kirby is an artist, filmmaker and teacher. She currently lives and works in San Francisco.
Kay Sekimachi is an American fiber artist and weaver, best known for her three-dimensional woven monofilament hangings as well as her intricate baskets and bowls.
Lucille Tenazas is a graphic designer, educator, and the founder of Tenazas Design. Her work consists of layered imagery and typography, focusing on the importance of language. She was born in Manila, Philippines, yet has spent a large portion of her life practicing in the United States.
Lia Cook is an American fiber artist noted for her work combining weaving with photography, painting, and digital technology. She lives and works in Berkeley, California, and is known for her weavings which expanded the traditional boundaries of textile arts. She has been a professor at California College of the Arts since 1976.
Rudolph Frederick Schaeffer an American arts educator and artist connected to the Arts and Crafts movement. He was the founder of the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design, a school that was based in San Francisco and produced designers, architects, interior decorators, teachers and colorists for more than 50 years. He was one of many pioneers in the study of color field, and has been credited with establishing the city of San Francisco as an International design center.
L.J. Roberts is an American textile artist. Roberts, who is genderqueer and uses singular they pronouns, explores queer and feminist politics in their work.
Richard Shaw is an American ceramicist and professor known for his trompe-l'œil style. A term often associated with paintings, referring to the illusion that a two-dimensional surface is three-dimensional. In Shaw's work, it refers to his replication of everyday objects in porcelain. He then glazes these components and groups them in unexpected and even jarring combinations. Interested in how objects can reflect a person or identity, Shaw poses questions regarding the relationship between appearances and reality.
Nance O'Banion (1949-2018) was an Oakland based American artist who "pioneered creative explorations of handmade paper". She is known for her sculptural paper works and book works which focus on themes of change and transformation. A retrospective sample of the arc of her work may be viewed at: https://nance-obanion.com
Léonie Guyer is a contemporary artist known for abstract paintings, drawings and installations utilizing materials such as antique, vintage and handmade paper, marble remnants, wood panels, and in site-based projects, walls and windows.
Micaela "Kai" Martínez DuCasse (1913–1989) was an American artist, author, and educator, known for her murals and sculptures. She was the daughter of Elsie Whitaker Martinez and painter Xavier Martínez. From 1955 to 1978 she taught at the San Francisco College for Women.