California Institute of The Arts - History

History

CalArts was originally formed as a merger of the Chouinard Art Institute (founded 1921) and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music (founded 1883). Both of the formerly existing institutions were going through financial difficulties around the same time, and the founder of the Art Institute, Nelbert Chouinard, was also fatally ill. The professional relationship between Madame Chouinard and Walt Disney began in 1929 when Disney had no money and Madame Chouinard agreed to train his first animators on a pay-later basis. He never forgot and over the years watched the Chouinard Art Institute grow into the finest art school on the West Coast. It was through the will of Disney, who discovered and trained many of his studio artists at Chouinard (including Mary Blair, Maurice Noble and some of the Nine Old Men, among others), that the merger of the two institutions was coordinated. Joining him were his brother Roy O. Disney, Lulu Von Hagen and Thornton Ladd (Ladd & Kelsey, Architects), of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music.

In 1965, the Alumni Association was founded as a non-profit organization and was governed by a twelve member Board of Directors to serve the best interests of the Institute and its programs. Members included leading professional artists and musicians, who contributed their knowledge, experience, and skill to strengthen the institute. The twelve founding Board of Directors members included Mary Costa, Edith Head, Gale Storm, Marc Davis, Tony Duquette, Harold Grieve, John Hench, Chuck Jones, Henry Mancini, Marty Paich, Nelson Riddle and Millard Sheets.

The ground-breaking for CalArts' current campus took place on May 3, 1969. However, construction of the new campus was stifled by torrential rains and labor troubles of every variety, including the earthquake in 1971. So instead, the "new" school began its first year in the buildings of Villa Cabrini Academy, a former Catholic girls' school on the edge of downtown Burbank. CalArts moved to its present campus in the Valencia section of the city of Santa Clarita, California in November 1971.

From the beginning, CalArts was plagued by the tensions between its art and trade school functions, and between the frankly non-commercial aspirations of the students and faculty and the conservative interests of the Disney family and trustees. The founding board of trustees originally planned on creating CalArts as a school in an entertainment complex, a destination like Disneyland, and a feeder school for the industry. In an ironic turn of fate, they appointed Dr. Robert W. Corrigan as the first president of the Institute. Corrigan, former dean of the School of Arts at New York University, was attempting to create a similar mix of artistic disciplines as those that were going to be attempted at CalArts. He was joined the following year by his friend Herbert Blau, hired as the Institute's provost and dean of the School of Theater and Dance. Subsequently, Blau was instrumental in hiring a number of professionals like Mel Powell (dean of the School of Music), Paul Brach (dean of the School of Art), Alexander Mackendrick (dean of the School of Film/Video), sociologist Maurice Stein (dean of Critical Studies), and Richard Farson (dean of the School of Design; now incorporated in the Art school) as well other influential program heads and teachers such as Allan Kaprow, Bella Lewitzky, Michael Asher, Jules Engel, John Baldessari, Judy Chicago, James Hurtak, Ravi Shankar, Max Kozloff, Miriam Shapiro and Douglas Huebler, most of whom largely came from a counterculture and avant-garde side of the art world. The fundamental principles established at the Institute by Blau and the late Corrigan included ideas like “no technique in advance of need,” and that a curriculum should be cyclical rather than sequential, returning to root principles at regular intervals, and that “we’re a community of artists here, some of us called faculty and some called students."

Corrigan held his position until 1972, when he was replaced by William S. Lund, a Disney son-in-law, a Stanford B.A., active in business, real estate, and economic counseling. WIthin a month of Lund's tenure as president, fifty-five of CalArts' 325 faculty and staff were fired. Structured schedules were introduced. Classes were trimmed back and within a year, the institute was operating on budget. Some credit Lund with saving CalArts. Others see his tenure as the end of an idealistic experiment. In 1975, Robert J. Fitzpatrick was appointed new president of CalArts. Holding this position for twelve years, in 1987 Fitzpatrick resigned as president to head Euro Disney in Paris. Nicholas England, former dean of the School of Music, was appointed acting president. One year later, Steven D. Lavine, associate director for arts and humanities at the Rockefeller Foundation, was named new president, a position he still holds.

Beginning in the summer of 1987, CalArts became the host of the state-funded California State Summer School for the Arts program. It began by the State of California as a program to nurture talented high school students in the fields of animation, creative writing, dance, film and video, music, theatre arts, and visual arts. CalArts expanded on the concept by creating the Community Arts Partnership in 1990. While CSSSA is open to qualifying California students, CAP, as it's commonly known, is a service provided to students living within underprivileged communities in the Los Angeles County school system. Many CalArts faculty and students mentor the high schoolstudents in both programs.

Over the years, the school has also developed on-campus, interdisciplinary laboratories, such as the Center for Experiments in Art, Information, and Technology, Center for Integrated Media, Center for New Performance at CalArts, and the Cotsen Center for Puppetry and the Arts.

In 1994, CalArts was damaged by the Northridge earthquake. Michael Eisner, on the Board of Trustees at the time, directed the real estate team at Disney to find a temporary site for the school. All the art programs were re-located to the Lockheed Rye Canyon Research facility for six months until the school was repaired.

That same year, Herb Alpert, a professional musician and admirer of the institute, collaborated with CalArts with his non-profit foundation to establish the Alpert Awards in the Arts. While the foundation provides the award for winning recipients, the school's faculty in the fields film/new media, visual arts, theatre, dance, and music select artists in their field to nominate an individual artist who is recognized for their innovation in their given medium. Recipients of this award are required to stay for a week as visiting artists at CalArts and mentor students studying their metier. In 2008, CalArts renamed the School of Music in his name, courtesy of a $15 million dollar donation.

In 2003, CalArts established a performance arts theatre in downtown Los Angeles called REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Center for New Performance, the professional producing arm of the CalArts Theater School, brings works to the space from both student and professional artists and musicians.