Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw

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The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw is one of the oldest and largest art institutions of higher education in Poland. The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw provides art education in twenty-eight different specializations and has nine faculties: Painting, Graphic Arts, Sculpture, Interior Design, Design, Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art, Media Art, Stage Design and Management of Visual Culture. There are more than 1500 students at the Academy and more than 300 academic teachers. Most of the professors are distinguished artists in their fields. Besides its educational functions, the Academy plays an important role in the cultural and social life of the city. The Academy cooperates with several foreign research centers and educational institutions. Having more than 90 partner institutions the Academy takes an active part in the Erasmus+ program. The Academy is a member of many international organizations, including among others, the NIKA, ELIA, Cumulus, and ENCoRE.
Traditions of art education in Warsaw date back to the reign of King Stanisław August Poniatowski and the Painting Studio at the Royal Castle, run by Marcello Bacciarelli. He became an honorary dean of the Department of Fine Arts created at Warsaw University in 1816 – the first academic art school in the Polish capital. Following the closing down of the University, the Department was replaced by a School of Fine Arts in 1844. And towards the end of the 19th century, Warsaw art education was continued by Wojciech Gerson’s Drawing Studio, which educated the most distinguished Polish artists of the turn of the centuries.
Warsaw School of Fine Arts was created through a community effort, and opened in 1904. The Supervisory Board nominated its first director the painter Kazimierz Dabrowski. The history of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw traditionally dates back to the origins of that school (which is why it celebrated its 100th Anniversary in 2004). Among its professors were some eminent Polish artists: Konrad Krzyżanowski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Karol Tichy and Xawery Dunikowski. The academic school’s curriculum characteristically included also “applied art” alongside painting, sculpture, and printmaking.
The School became the Academy of Fine Arts only in 1932. Its curriculum in the interwar period matched those of the most innovative European art schools, thus making its mark in Polish cultural heritage. Art groups and associations, such as Art, Brotherhood of St. Luke, and later Ład, originated in the Academy’s milieu at the time.
Reactivated in 1945, the Academy was merged with the State Academic School of Plastic Arts in 1950. With the difficult experience of socialist realism and groundbreaking debates of the late 1950s, a faculty of professors became permanently associated with the school, including Jan Cybis, Juliusz Studnicki, Eugeniusz Eibisch, Aleksander Kobzdej, Tadeusz Kulisiewicz, Franciszek Strynkiewicz, Marian Wnuk, Czesław Knothe and Jerzy Sołtan. The academic school subsequently operated through a system of master studios, supported by outstanding art historians: Ksawery Piwocki and Mieczysław Porębski.
Today the Academy of Fine Arts consists of 9 faculties: Painting, Graphic Arts, Sculpture, Media Art, Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art, Design, Interior design, Stage Design, and Management of Visual Culture. It is the largest academic art school in Poland. Besides its educational functions, it plays an important part in the cultural life of the city and the nation. Its international standing has been consistently improving as a direct result of the developing co-operation with academic centers abroad.

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