If you are after an intensive, ambitious, taught postgraduate course that offers you the freedom to interrogate your own practice in depth with the support, challenge and encouragement of a range of inspiring professional artists, then please read on.
Our focus is on your individual development, so the course, while structured, is essentially bespoke. With regular, specialist one-to-one tutorial contact; easy access to technical facilities; South London’s burgeoning contemporary art scene and London’s unrivalled cultural heritage on your doorstep; critiques, talks and professional practice seminars by some of London’s most exciting artists; and, of course, the unique, creative cross-pollination of the Art School’s various departments.
AN AMBITIOUS, CREATIVE COMMUNITY
As you will discover, the Art School’s smaller scale and high staff-to-student ratio is key to the quality of the teaching and your experience. All of our students are selected for their strong portfolio together with their potential and appetite for intensive daily studio engagement – their curiosity, their ambition and their commitment to their art practice. This means that you will be a member of an exceptional peer group and benefit from interaction in this highly focused, pro-active and creative community. The result is a valuable network of peers and alumni who frequently go on to work together after completing the course.
SUPPORTED BY PRACTISING ARTISTS
You will be taught by artists, whose work, exhibited nationally and internationally, reflects the diversity and range of current fine art practice. Our staffing levels mean that you will also benefit from the high level of contact time and regular one-to-one tutorials that studying Fine Art at this level requires.
SPACIOUS STUDIOS
Artists have been working in our studios for over 100 years. There’s no hot-desking here: a generous, dedicated workspace is available to Full-time students in our well-lit, historic MA studios, while part-time students spread their study over two years with their own studio arrangements supplemented by studios at the Art School in July and August.
ART HISTORIES
We believe strongly that specialist skills should not be taught in a vacuum, so we make Art Histories an integral part of all our courses, and teach it in such a way that it informs, inspires and incentivises. Students studying Fine Art MA can expect to learn Critical Aesthetics, an intensive course that seeks to examine creative practice from a philosophical and critical perspective. Read more about our engaging approach and stimulating Art Histories programme.
EXHIBIT YOUR WORK
In the summer our full time and final year part time MA students are allocated their showing spaces that make use of the BA as well as the MA studios. In September the Art School studios transform into beautiful showing spaces for our final exhibition. This event, which includes work by our Fellows, will provide an important platform for your work and recent exhibitions have been well received and led to commissions and future exhibitions, residencies and projects.
GRADUATES’ SUCCESS
The most recent survey by Modern Painters magazine placed our Fine Art MA in the top 3 in the UK – above those of the Slade, Goldsmiths and UAL. Some of our recent MA students and alumni have been selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition and the Catlin Prize, the Threadneedle Prize, the John Moores Painting Prize and the Griffin Prize, Young Gods… as well as being purchased for the Saatchi Collection and many other important private international collections.
In the recent years the Art School has been busy developing new opportunities for recent graduates and 2017 saw a new award, the Artists’ Collecting Society / City & Guilds of London Art School Studio Award. The prize consists of £7,000 towards establishing a studio in the year following graduation, as well as membership to ACS and a one-year subscription to Bridgeman Studio.
You can download a pdf of our prospectus here and check out our News page to find out what’s been happening at the Art School.