National Art School

The National Art School is an art school in Sydney, Australia. It is a Public Company Limited by Guarantee with a board of directors. It has Institutional Registration and Course Accreditation supported by the DET Higher Education Directorate.

History and description

The National Art School (NAS) has been in the centre of Sydney’s art scene at its Darlinghurst location for almost a century, and has nurtured the talents of generations of artists, who have studied and worked in studios within the walls of the old Darlinghurst Gaol.

The development of the Art School can be traced back to the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, where the first lecture on the principles of drawing by John Skinner Prout took place in 1843. In 1854, Joseph Fowles was engaged as a drawing teacher, and in 1873 the Department of Art was set up in the School of Arts building in Pitt Street, offering courses in technical and fine art drawing, as well as training in drawing for primary school teachers.

The first instructor in the art department was the Frenchman Lucien Henry, who had trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and brought many elements of the curriculum of that institution to the Art School in Sydney, where he taught freehand drawing, design and modelling. In 1883, the Technical and Working Men’s College was taken over by the government-appointed Board of Technical Education. It came to be known as the Sydney Technical College and in 1892 the art department moved to the College’s new premises in Ultimo.

After the First World War, Sydney Technical College expanded its courses and began to look for another site close to the city. In 1919, James Nangle, Superintendent of Technical Education, and Thomas Mutch, Minister for Public Instruction, lobbied to convert the disused Darlinghurst Gaol buildings to an annexe of Sydney Technical College, and in 1922, the Department of Art was moved from Ultimo to the Darlinghurst Gaol site, occupying five buildings alongside other departments from East Sydney Technical College.

With the arrival of the flamboyant and influential English sculptor G Rayner Hoff in 1923, the art department at East Sydney gained a new impetus, and Hoff helped to establish a five year Diploma course in 1926. It was in this year that the name ‘National Art School’ was first mentioned in the catalogue for an Exhibition of Art by the students of East Sydney Technical College.

The 1950s and 1960s saw a period of consolidation at the Art School, with swelling numbers of Diploma students and an enormous influx of evening students. Life-long friendships were formed, and the social life of the School included student revues, group painting trips and the legendary art student balls. The opening of the Cell Block Theatre in 1958 saw students become involved in the music, dance and theatre productions which were regularly performed there.

The focus of NAS on the ‘atelier method’ of teaching, which had evolved during Rayner Hoff’s time, was reinforced during this period. Drawing formed the core of the program and small classes were taught by practising artists who were leaders in their fields.

The survival of the Art School was threatened in 1974, when a proposal to move the School from the East Sydney campus was put forward by the Department of Technical and Further Education (TAFE). An intense and heart-felt fight was put up by students and staff, and marches on Parliament House were organised, but by the beginning of 1975, NAS had been decimated, with the Division of Fine Art taken under the umbrella of a new College of Advanced Education called Alexander Mackie College in Paddington (later known as the City Art Institute and now the College of Fine Arts or COFA). Although it appeared that the fight to stay on the site had been lost, the art course continued to run at East Sydney as a very diminished ‘School of Art and Design’, which offered a two year certificate - a far cry from the heady days of the1960s. Due to the determination of the staff who had stayed on at East Sydney, and the forming of Friends of the National Art School (FoNAS), NAS was gradually rebuilt, and a three-year Diploma was offered in 1988.

Supporters of the NAS believed that independence from TAFE was essential. After intense lobbying by many well-known figures from the art world, separation from TAFE was finally achieved in 1996, when Bob Carr became Labour Premier and honoured his promise of independence for NAS.

The NAS Bachelor of Fine Art degree was accredited in 1998 and the new three-year course began in 1999. NAS was the only state-based institution to offer a degree course and was further accredited for Honours and Master of Fine Art (by Research) degrees in 2001.

A form of independence had been achieved, but the School was still managed within the NSW Department of Education and Training (DET). In June 2006, three weeks prior to announcing his retirement, Premier Bob Carr announced that Expressions of Interest to transfer the School to one of Sydney’s existing universities would be sought. This move was vehemently opposed by supporters of the School, with a strong campaign and more marches on Parliament House, which finally resulted in a task force being set up to investigate and report on options for the School’s future. This committee recommended that NAS be made a fully independent higher education provider.

In 2009, the Hon Verity Firth, the NSW Minister for Education, announced that the School would be released from the management of DET and be registered as a public company limited by guarantee, with two members, the NSW Ministers for Arts and Education, with a Board of Directors and a new Director/CEO of the School.

Independence has finally been achieved and NAS is now registered as an independent higher education provider, with its own governance, leadership and management. The School continues to offer the accredited Bachelor of Fine Art, Honours and Master of Fine Art (by Research) degrees, characterised by the intensive studio-based teaching in small group sizes, in the subject specialist areas of Ceramics, Drawing, Painting, Photography, Printmaking and Sculpture, with each subject underpinned by the concentrated study of drawing and art history and theory. The exemplar-led ‘atelier model’ is further enhanced by the excellent NAS Gallery, first established in 2006, the International and Interstate Artists-in-Residence programs and the Study Centre for Drawing established in 2010.

The announcement by Premier Kristina Kenneally, in October 2010, of an additional $6m for capital development provided a significant boost to the development plans of the new National Art School, which will see the enhancement of the postgraduate facilities and improved conditions for its nationally significant archives and collections. The National Art School continues to produce many successful graduates who contribute to its long lineage as the foremost specialist fine art training institution in Australia. All of these distinctive features ensure that the National Art School continues to contribute significantly to the creative and cultural life of Australia, and beyond.

The principal mission of the National Art School is to be a centre of excellence for the provision of higher education and research, scholarship and professional practice in the visual arts and related fields.

The National Art School utilises its independent identity and distinctive teaching & learning methods to realise this mission through the development of creativity and visual and cultural awareness in an international context.

The aims and objectives of the National Art School are: To be a centre of excellence for the delivery of high quality specialist education in studio-based visual arts and related fields. To be at the forefront of learning, creativity and practice in the visual arts, nationally and internationally. To provide high quality education that fosters the acquisition and interrelationship of technical skills with creative invention. To ensure that practice, research and scholarship in drawing is a core visual language and underpins creative development in all aspects of provision. To situate all programs of study within the art historical, theoretical, cultural and professional contexts appropriate to the development of knowledge and understanding of the studio arts. To promote the widest possible participation and diversity of students by recruiting locally, nationally, and internationally. To ensure that all academic staff are distinguished in their field as actively practicing artists, scholars and/or researchers, recognized nationally and internationally.

The institute focuses on providing the three-year course accompanying the Bachelor of Fine Arts; it specialises in five key studio areas: painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture and ceramics. The school also offers a program for both Honours and Master of Fine Arts.

The school's staff are largely employed on a part-time system which allows them a stable income, while also enabling them to maintain a professional practice. This allows students to constantly be in contact with and learn from practising Australian artists.

The school makes drawing a compulsory subject for all three years of the course.

The school houses the National Art School Gallery as well as the student gallery, the library stairwell gallery and a bronze casting facility, digital lab, wet lab, kilns, and printing facilities.

The school's students have won the Brett Whiteley traveling scholarship, the William Fletcher travelling scholarship, the Helen Lempiere, and many other awards and prizes.

The school also conducts its own traveling scholarship, the Fonas Storrier/Onslow Paris residency to the Cite Internationale Des Arts, which is administered through the Friends of the National Art School.

Notable alumni

• Giles Alexander
• Sydney Ball
• Justin Balmain
• Phil Belbin
• John Bloomfield
• Bill Brown
• Cressida Campbell
• John Coburn
• Simon Cooper
• Lucy Culliton
• Elisabeth Cummings
• Ken Done
• Max Dupain
• Stuart D. Fleming
• Todd Fuller
• Geoffrey de Groen
• James Gleeson
• Fiona Hall
• Rolf Harris
• Gary Jolley
• Alan Jones
• Jumaadi
• Anita Keating
• Tim Kyle
• Margaret Olley
• Alex Perry
• Guy Maestri
• Bligh Twyford-Moore
• Arthur McIntyre
• Reg Mombassa
• Susan Norrie
• John Olsen
• Robert Owen
• Ted Prior
• Ben Dos Remidios
• Mark Rowden
• Luke Sciberis
• Martin Sharp
• Wendy Sharpe
• Jeffrey Smart
• Joshua Smith
• Tim Storrier
• Alex Tayco
• Michael Taylor
• Noel Thurgate
• Peter Travis
• Margaret Tuckson
• Eli Turier
• Melanie Waugh
• Angus Wood

External links

• Official website