History
The College of Fine Arts, a faculty of The University of New South Wales UNSW, can trace its history from the formation of The Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts in 1833, which led to the formation of Sydney Technical College in 1878.
In 1958 the New South Wales Government combined all its Technical Colleges under the name of The National Art School. Further incarnations followed: in 1970 the visual art section of The National Art School was amalgamated with the Alexander Mackie Teachers College; in 1975 the Alexander Mackie College was made a College of Advanced Education, becoming a ‘multi disciplinary’ college with a School of Art and a School of Teacher Education; and in 1982 Alexander Mackie CAE joined Sydney Teachers' College and several other teaching institutions to become Sydney College of Advanced Education (Sydney CAE), and was renamed the City Art Institute.
The City Art Institute seceded from Sydney CAE in 1987 and joined the Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) to create the NSW Institute of the Arts. The two institutions remained at their original locations in Paddington and Balmain but the partnership was short-lived. In 1988 Federal legislation removed the distinction between state-owned Colleges of Advanced Education and federally-funded universities, resulting in the amalgamation of most CAEs with existing universities. The devolution of NSW Institute of the Arts was included in these changes, made effective on 1 January 1990, when Sydney College of the Arts joined the University of Sydney and the City Art Institute, renamed the College of Fine Arts (COFA), became a faculty of The University of New South Wales.
Still located at the original Paddington Campus, COFA is a prominent player in the teaching of and research in art, design and multi media, art history and theory and art education. It offers bachelor, master and doctoral degrees in fine art, art education, art theory, design and art administration.
In May 2009, the Federal Government gave COFA a vote of confidence to the tune of $48 million, through the Education Investment Fund (EIF), for the $58 million Gateway@COFA redevelopment. For more information on the redevelopment of COFA, visit the redevelopment website .
- COFA History
- COFA Redevelopment Website
- COFA Website
Read more about this topic: University Of New South Wales College Of Fine Arts
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)